Publisher of Free Textbooks Says It Will Now Charge For Them, Instead 156
An anonymous reader writes "In a surprising blow to the movement to create free textbooks online, an upstart company called Flat World Knowledge is dumping its freemium model. The upstart publisher had made its textbooks free online and charged for print versions or related study guides, but company officials now say that isn't bringing in enough money to work long-term."
Surprising? I think not. (Score:2, Interesting)
We've seen this very scenario many times before, e.g. CDDB, change.org, etc.
Re:well, duh (Score:4, Interesting)
And I look for my textbooks second hand ( I like the margin notes, anyway )
And the book stores really like you. Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday --
A new textbook went for $100
You could return that textbook for $30 (assuming that a new edition did not popup all of the sudden)
And then you could buy the same used textbook at a steeply discount price of $75-$80.
I suspect reselling used textbooks is far more lucrative than selling new ones. At least for the bookstores.
Re:Surprising? I think not...Open Living. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes we have. Open (anything) source has a history of being difficult to make a living off of.
In the case of software, it has proven difficult, but not impossible. But this is no Red Hat Linux -- it's not someone taking the voluntary effort of millions and wrapping it up in a managed test-and-support environment. Red Hat profits because Red Hat take free and add value. Flat World have taken value (their books) and added free. That's completely back-to-front.
The problem here is not "open", it's "freemium". It's the freemium that never seems to work. The original philosophy of freemium was the idea that on the internet, unit cost was so low that a minority of "serious" customers would pay enough to keep the servers running. A lot of the "freemium" camp has found that freeloaders are actually more demanding in terms of support than they expected, and you can't ignore the guys on the free plan as long as you're hoping that they might one day become paying customers...
If they're still talking about partnering with EdX, though, they may still end up producing free material anyway, but as it will be customised to the EdX courses, it may well become something of an advertising asset, rather than a money sink.
Perhaps this is the way forward for the freemium business model -- limit the "free" version to a part of a wider "free" system. So the free version is "closed", but the paid version is "open". That means turning a few of our assumptions about the word "open" on their head...
Re:Having an aneurysm - send help. (Score:5, Interesting)
obviously, people were willing to settle for the electronic books without the physical.
May not even be a case of settling.
I wrote a novel aimed at a small student community, and released the ebook for free. i wanted it to be a gift, so i made the ebook free (creative commons) and also gave away a lot of physical copies to the people i thought would appreciate them most (within a certain community).
the really interesting thing is that i got feedback (remember, from people who i was offering the book to for free) that they were really happy to have the ebook version, but they didn't want the physical book version becase it was 'stuff' that they didn't need. they're students, they move around a lot, books aren't that light, plus they don't really have a place they keep 'things' any more, now they've moved out of home, and probably won't for a few years to come.
now sure, they might not have been interested at all, and been letting me down gently, but it made me realise that there'd need to be more to any future business model i might come up with than 'electronic is free, physical is not'. i know this may seem obvious in retrospect, but i think there's still an assumption held by many people that physical copy = upgrade of electronic copy, and this may not be true.
i'm sure many people on slashdot feel that way already, but mostly i would expect for functional/practical reasons. however, my experience suggests that the sentimental value of a physical book may no longer exceed the value of the ebook, either.
that could be the seeds of an interesting change in our perception of books altogether.
Re:well, duh (Score:5, Interesting)
And they work school policy to enforce they position too. A lot of schools will hold Grant and loan payment disbursements until after class starts forcing you to buy from the campus store on credit instead of having the options to get the books for 1/10th the price on the internet.
Re:Blow? I think not. (Score:5, Interesting)
If Baen had done something like this it would have been a blow.
Yeah, a financial blow for Baen. I've spent fat stacks of cash on books that they'd lured me in with free versions. It helps for series sales to release the first novel, but it REALLY helps to release at least one novel per author, so you get a free preview of what they're like, and then the collecting drive kicks in and the amazon boxes start arriving ...
It seems there's a substantial psychological hill to climb with non-free publishers "I hate you Fing pirates downloading our books" "Well F you guys I'll buy something from Baen instead if it makes you feel any better" vs "Here's something free you might like. If you like it, there's lots more that's cheap, but not free." "Cool, (VLM whips out credit card)"
This is not theoretical, Baen is making more money off me than they "should" merely via their marketing gimmick.