As I mentioned in an earlier post, Cengage, who publish my Discovering Biological Psychology, is launching CengageBrain.com, a new portal for obtaining textbooks directly without paying the college bookstores their middleman cuts. You can buy regular textbooks, eBooks, or eChapters. A new feature is the ability to rent a textbook. My book is one of the first batches available for this new rental service, which is very exciting.
CengageBrain makes renting easy and inexpensive
It’s exciting to see the publishers take this step, as it will go a long way towards reducing the cost to the student and recapturing some of the compensation due to those of us who actually produce the materials. Just like the music industry solved the Napster problem, I think this type of creativity on the part of the publishers will help solve the textbook cost issue. It’s just basically unfair for the bookstores to make huge amounts of money on our work without having to pay us a nickel. I’d feel differently about it if the students got a good deal when they sell their books and buy used, but they don’t. The bookstores make about $70 each time they sell my book, and all they have to do to earn that is to warehouse it for a few days between terms. If they were as worried about the students as they say, they could either pay students more for books or take less profit on them, but that’s not how it works. Maybe things will start to change.
1 Comment
lkearney · December 1, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I think being able to buy and rent books online is a great idea! As someone who has paid their own way through college, I have to admit that I have not purchased books for quite a few of my classes due to lack of finances. Buying books online at a reduced price would have greatly helped (unfortunately, I’m graduating this quarter and won”t reap the benefits of this new system). Also, the ability to pay only for the chapters you need would be extremely helpful. Sometimes, textbooks really aren’t necessary to succeed in some classes. Merely attending lecture and taking good notes can be sufficient. However, sometimes a particular concept or chapter may be especially hard to grasp and external resources must be sought out. Having access to only the chapters you need without having to purchase the entire book is ideal for many college courses.
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