As the hot humid weather starts to slowly turn crisp to signify fall, for students the cool air marks the start of a new school year — goodbye barbeques, goodbye late nights spent around a bonfire, and hello books. Students are beginning the long, hard trek back to the hallowed halls of college or university. The time has come for students to dig deep into their pockets, or if they’re lucky their parents’ pockets, and spend all that hard-earned summer money. It’s time to pay for tuition, rent, and of course, textbooks.
Textbooks have been around since the dawn of time; that’s not true but sometimes it feels like that. They’re big, bulky, wordy, and they’re expensive. While some textbooks are reasonably priced, others can cost well over $200. That’s $200 for a single textbook. The amount of courses a student will take varies per person, per area of study, and per semester but more often than not they’ll end up needing multiple textbooks. New textbooks, or old, can often be resold to other students, making back a small portion of what has been spent (so long as there isn’t a new edition being released). For a student, that $200 feels like an investment. The hope is that the investment is well worth it.
While in general textbooks have not changed a whole lot, advances in printing have enabled some improvements. For example textbooks have added more pictures and colour. They are also printed using thinner stock to reduce the weight. Many publishers have made an effort to try and appeal to the ever-changing population of students. Discussion of current case studies and examples that make sense to today’s generation flood the new editions in an attempt to stay relevant. However, there is only so much you can change about a printed book to accommodate new learning styles. This is, perhaps, where digital textbooks can come in handy.
Many students today have grown up in the digital world. They like quick information from multiple sources, pictures, sounds, videos, hyperlinks, interactivity, etc. In short, instant gratification is key. They like to have a sense of discovery. While not every student will share each of these desires, the general trend does seem to be moving toward this new dynamic style of learning. It’s nearly impossible for a printed textbook to accomplish this. The opportunity then lies within its digital counterpart.
Digital textbooks have the advantage of being able to link users to tutorial videos, websites or virtually any sort of online material. This means that a student can take a break from all of the text and simply listen and watch. Often printed textbooks will have online resources that attempt to quiz students or simply teach them in another way, but that process is not nearly as seamless as it can be in a digital book.
Aside from appealing to more interactive learning styles, digital textbooks offer additional advantages. From a publisher’s perspective, it is easier to keep them updated because you do not have to worry about inventory. Not to mention that the distribution and cost for producing a digital text can be appealing. For a student, digital files are of course lighter in the backpack, and sometimes easier on the wallet (though certainly not always).
There are, of course, drawbacks to digital textbooks. For one, not everyone learns best in a hyper dynamic environment. Secondly, it’s hard for students to appreciate the price of a digital book. Most students assume that a large part of the $100 they spend on a book is for the printing, leaving them wondering where the money goes when a textbook is digital. Further, it’s hard to imagine students selling a used digital textbook. Lastly, moving to digital can cause a lot of piracy issues, making it easier than ever to illegally share textbook content.
In spite of the disadvantages, the market for digital textbooks is on the rise. Digital textbooks in the United States, as predicted by xplana(1), will make up approximately 5.5 percent of the market share by next year. That number is set to more than double by 2014, reaching upwards of 18 percent. Not only that, but the increase in sales is said to be jumping 200 percent a year. In dollars, that translates to an increase from 54 million in 2010, all the way to 1.1 billion in 2014.
As tablets and smartphones become more popular so will digital textbooks. Technology is helping to drive the digital textbook forward, making it more attractive to students. This does not mean that there is no place for a printed copy. As more publishers move to offering a digital alternative, there is sure to be an increase in on-demand printed books as well. As usual in business, when one door closes another opens.
