Do you ever stop long enough to just consider the world around you and the vast amount of change that is occurring? Take the world of book publishing for example. With Kindles, iPads, Nooks and the like, reading digital versions of books or “e-books” is starting to become the norm.
Consider a few of these statistics:
- Ebooks outsell print for the majority of titles on the USA today Best Seller list
- In 2011, it is estimated (by the Association of American Publisher) that sales were above 100 million a month for ebooks.
Will there come a day when digital readers, such as the Kindle, will cost next to nothing, or maybe even be free? What about book stores? The other day someone told me that his old college library now has no books in it at all.
What about the world of over priced college textbooks? College students have much better options today. They can purchase them in digital form.
Apple just rolled out digital textbooks and sold over 350,000 titles in the first 3 days. What is good for regular book publishing seems to be catching on with textbooks as well.
You can also rent your textbook. Neebo, a nationwide network of college bookstores backed by their online website Neebo.com, began giving away 100,000 textbook rentals (worth an estimated $6 million) starting January 2nd. The annual giveaway is just one of many ways that Neebo is trying to save students money, including offering a 20% discount on all textbook prices.
Students can go to freerental.neebo.com, select a book, “like” the Neebo Facebook page (www.facebook.com/neebo) and that book rental is free! In addition, once the free rental transaction is completed, the student has the option of going to Neebo.com to order all their textbooks at a 20 percent discount. Plus, all books ordered at Neebo.com include free shipping. The promotion will run through the end of January 2012 or until all the free rentals are snatched up.
