

Big screen Kindle: Textbook margins are the real aim, not saving newspapers - robg
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=17398

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elai
Phft. Other ebook experiences show that publishers will just insist that ebook
prices would be around (or probably more) than the same price as the paper
textbooks. Publishers know they have a captured market, so to avoid
cannibalization (and fears of loosing the grip on their market) they're not
going allow those prices to go down. Even a big retailer like amazon isn't
going to make much of a difference, since a larger majority of textbook sales
are not from amazon.

It's going to be a slow road.

~~~
foulmouthboy
I'm imagining it will be quicker than that. There are a lot of schools that
use licensed, photocopied "readers" along with or even instead of the actual
textbooks. Universities could do much better margins by making these types of
texts digital and authors/professors would be able to publish and update at
much greater frequency.

Publishers would be much better off building a business model now rather than
repeating the RIAA's mistakes.

~~~
randallsquared
_Publishers would be much better off building a business model now rather than
repeating the RIAA's mistakes._

But as always, existing players mostly seek to preserve income streams, rather
than create new ones, even when an unbiased look will show that the existing
ones are doomed.

The only publisher I know, offhand, which isn't falling into this trap is Baen
Books, and they don't do textbooks. Yet. :)

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ironkeith
When I was in university I would have loved to have all my textbook in one
(really small and really light) Kindle as opposed to hauling around 3 or 4
textbooks every day. Even if the margin is only the 30% printing costs it
would pay for itself a couple of times over for a four year degree.

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rbanffy
What I want is an e-book reader that, when connected to the computer presents
itself as both a printer and a disk drive. If I copy a .txt or PDF file over
to the disk, it will be available when I unplug the device. By unplugging, it
will automatically start indexing whatever changed. When printing, the disk
drive will be automatically unmounted and, when done, there will be a PDF file
with whatever I printed already indexed. It should make for a good reading
experience without reformatting anything.

I have a ton of stuff to read, but I generate a whole lot more every day.
Diagrams, spreadsheets, documentation in every conceivable format...

BTW, if the thing has 3G and wi-fi built-in and makes for a passable browsing
experience, it would be great. I would love if it presented itself as a Samba
server and a LPR PostScript color printer.

It's sure not that much to ask. Is it?

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devicenull
You could probably pull that off with existing software.. There are programs
that let you "Print" to a PDF file (Such as CutePDF for windows).. combine
that with some shell/bash scripts, and you could set it up to automatically
email they to the kindle when they are printed. Bonus to emailing them would
be you don't need to be tethered.

~~~
rbanffy
Of course I could, but I don't have the time to put into this. And that would
still do nothing to the fact that reading PDF files not formatted to the
Kindle (such as magazines) is painful. A 12" 4xXGA (2048x1536) screen would be
my guess as what's needed for this to work. 800x600 just doesn't do it.

There _must_ be someone willing to explore this niche. Where's the TechCrunch
tablet?

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mustpax
Reasonable hypothesis. If you reduce distribution costs for academic materials
the price should follow. There's even a diagram in there that shows 32.2% of
textbooks prices come from printing costs.

But here's the thing: the full "printing cost" category includes "paper,
_printing, editorial costs._ " I'd wager, like most physical media of our day,
the manufacturing costs are just a sliver of the actual margin. The value does
not come from the grade of plastic on your DVD, it's the content, obviously.
In other words, "editorial costs."

These include things like office rent in Manhattan, employee salaries and
stuff that's not going to be affected a single bit by the distribution
channel. So I wouldn't hold my breath for price wars spurred by the Kindle
revolution.

Now, used textbook sales on the other hand, that's a true margin killer.

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zaidf
A few of my textbooks are available as ebooks yet the price difference between
physical and ebook is minimal.

The textbook business is a well-orchestrated sham that will need gov't
intervention if it keeps going this way.

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anigbrowl
That could be hard without color. I'm not sure I buy this, since the pdf
ability (finally, duh Amazon) will compete with many of the textbooks.

I still fail to see why the thing has a keyboard. Just give me a USB port and
let me plug one in, or something similar. 40+ buttons means 40+ things to go
wrong. Waste of space, components, and maintenance overhead for a search
function that could be implemented many other ways. I'm afraid the thing
reminds me unpleasantly of the IBM PCjr.

