Amazon Lets Students Rent Digital Textbooks

[Guest]

Carrying books to school could get a lot lighter soon as Amazon is now offering a service that lets students rent electronic versions of textbooks.

Amazon Lets Students Rent Digital Textbooks : Read more

 

[sliem]

Awesome, not only it saves trees, it also saves college students money!

 

[dextermat]

Good, I remember when I had to buy 100$ textbook and could not sell it the year after because they changed edition....

Text books are such a rip off: STUDENTS ARE NOT RICH FOR GOD SHAKES

 

[dfusco]

"GOD SHAKES"...???
What???? His head, fist, booty? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[fyasko]

[citation][nom]dextermat[/nom]Good, I remember when I had to buy 100$ textbook and could not sell it the year after because they changed edition....Text books are such a rip off: STUDENTS ARE NOT RICH FOR GOD SHAKES[/citation]

hmmm, sounds like what game developers, publishers and distributors are doing now... how are poor people supposed to get an education AND game?

 

[rozz]

$100s of dollars in college books wasted.. WASTED! and for what?! A degree??? why amazon.. why now?! why not 3 years ago!?

 

[bustapr]

well just in time! I dont think i can afford another semester buying books ill barely use. I just loved how my chemistry professor wanted me to not use my 1st edition $100 tro book, and buy the 2nd edition tro book because it had a few more exercises...

 

[distanted]

[citation][nom]dextermat[/nom]Good, I remember when I had to buy 100$ textbook and could not sell it the year after because they changed edition....Text books are such a rip off: STUDENTS ARE NOT RICH FOR GOD SAKES[/citation]
+100
I knew professors that were forced to require textbooks they didn't want or upgrade every year, even if the changes were cosmetic. Some of the best business lessons in monopolies and trusts occurred outside the classroom.

 

[eddieroolz]

I love Amazon and this is just another reason why. I hope they'll offer this in Canada.

 

[nick04263]

Great idea. Why wasn't this available a few years ago for me??
I used to buy the cheap and crappiest books I could, take them to my first class and try and read each professor and how they felt about using the books. The syllabus we got on day one helped me figure out if I needed the thing or not and would try to return any I knew I would barely use.

 

[pocketdrummer]

[citation][nom]dextermat[/nom]Good, I remember when I had to buy 100$ textbook and could not sell it the year after because they changed edition....Text books are such a rip off: STUDENTS ARE NOT RICH FOR GOD SHAKES[/citation]
[citation][nom]dfusco[/nom]"GOD SHAKES"...??? What???? His head, fist, booty? Inquiring minds want to know.[/citation]

Leave Sean Connery alone...

 

[chill1221]

In my job I actually reference my text books quite a bit, so the $100+ a book was never a waste.

 

[spacemaynee]

[citation][nom]pocketdrummer[/nom]Leave Sean Connery alone...[/citation]


what he said makes so much sense now

 

[WyomingKnott]

Instead of greed, might the cost of textbooks be high because - demand is low? How many copies of a text on applying Berner distributions to switching theory going to sell? (yes, that is gibberish). But it has to be made worth the publisher's investment to print it.

On the other hand, the people who write these books, usually college professors, deserve to be paid too. Although publishing textbooks is probably a good investment in their careers, so they may not need to make as many dollars from a book as the publishers do.

Here's an interesting thought: With the price of publishing reduced, will more textbooks become available? Or will we just get flooded with worthless, uninformative, poorly-written textbooks?