Textbooks are expensive, and time-sensitive. Students often get frustrated when they buy a textbook for $120, the curriculum changes the next semester and the student can’t re-sell the book. That’s why book “renting” has become more and more popular at university campuses nationwide.
And book publishing companies have recently offered college professors the option of customizing their textbooks, in order to cut unnecessary chapters or add original material, but this makes re-selling even more difficult for the student, as the books are so specialized. So, what’s the next evolution of book personalization going to be? You can bet it will be in e-book form.
McGraw-Hill, Macmillan and Flat World Knowledge have all created customized e-book publishing systems, which allows professors to customize e-books created from content from the publisher’s entire library along with professor-created content. This is a whole new world. Not just for professors to get the exact content they want. But for students to access it on their iPads or laptops at roughly 1/4 or less of the price it would cost to attain a printed equivalent.