McGraw-Hill President Talks e-Books

Textbooks have been part of Brian Kibby’s life for most of his professional career. As president of McGraw-Hill Education, Kibby’s thoughts on textbooks, and particularly e-textbooks, carries significant weight. Kibby recently sat down with John Biggs, editor of TechCrunch.com, for a video interview for TCTV.

He’s ready to embrace the future of bookless learning where costs are reduced and learning is improved.

Blogger Weighs in on E-Book 'Rush'

The CITE featured a blog from University of Virginia professor Daniel Willingham who wondered what the rush is to adopt digital course materials (scroll down to May 8). His point was that course materials are more difficult to read than books for pleasure. Besides, digital he added textbooks aren’t much cheaper than print editions in the first place.

That post brought a reply that led to a different and perhaps more cynical conclusion on the reasons behind the push for digital. This blogger questions why both the federal and state governments are pushing digital materials so hard and finds the answer in big business. He says he wants to believe that all the legislation is about making things better for students, but is concerned it’s just about money for publishers.

“The thing is, if my conclusion about how digital textbooks got so hot so fast (is right), then it raises serious doubts as to whether they really have so many virtues,” writes Nate Hoffelder. “What if all the supposed advantages of digital textbooks are really the invention of a sophisticated marketing department and not the observations of enthusiastic adopters?”

Clearly, these are very different points of view. So what’s your thoughts?

Are Libraries Latest Threat to e-Booksellers?

Amazon has been the Goliath of the e-book battleground. Booksellers, publishers, authors, and libraries have all taken turns bemoaning the buying power and aggressive price strategy employed by the Seattle company. But that notion may not be correct any longer, according to Chris Rechtsteiner, blogger and publisher of the weekly newsletter Thinking Out Loud, who suggested four months ago that libraries were the real threat to e-book sales.

Now, Rechtsteiner, who is also the founder and chief strategist for research firm BlueLoop Concepts, says people simply not reading is now the biggest challenge facing booksellers, publishers, and libraries. They’re not reading because there are so many low-cost alternatives to capture their attention, whether accessed via television, tablet, or smartphone.

In a recent postfor digitalbookworld.com, he speculated that libraries have dealt with the issue of people not reading for quite some time and have been forced to adapt more quickly. Creating programs to lend e-books and e-readers is the sort of innovation booksellers and publishers have not been doing with the same sense of urgency.

Booksellers and authors are trying, but need help from publishers, according to Rechtsteiner.

“Publishers (both old and new) must step up and provide the platforms (and rights-management frameworks) for innovation needed by booksellers (all types of booksellers) and authors to push reading forward,” he wrote. “If they don’t, publishers will fall by the wayside as true innovation will be limited to a few (one?) large players investing on their own behalf (see Amazon, Barnes & Noble + Microsoft), while authors take their storytelling to completely new platforms that are altogether outside of the bookselling and library frameworks.”

Cool Hardware Won't Win Educational Tablet War

There’s little debate about the potential electronic devices have in the realm of learning. The problem comes in realizing that potential, says to Mehdi Maghsoodnia, CEO of Rafter, the parent company of BookRenter.com, in this guest post written for Forbes.com.

Cost is one large stumbling block to reaching that potential. At this point, the cost of the device and the educational content assigned doesn’t ensure a savings for students compared to printed textbooks, which is a primary reason why e-books remain less than 5% of all textbook sales.

There is also the issue of supporting the device and getting educators to use digital content effectively.

“Simply putting digital books on a device is not enough to truly digitalize education,” Maghsoodnia writes. “In order to make real inroads at colleges and universities, devices must be accessible for students, and adopted by their professors and administrators.”

Becoming the device of choice for education will not be a race to the coolest features or content. It will be a race to solve the problems of cost and scale to help institutions find their way into the digital future, according to Maghsoodnia.

Amazon Turns its Sights on High Fashion

Chances are this is the first, and last, time high fashion will be discussed on this blog. But it’s a story that bears watching since Amazon is using its “go big and spare no expense” philosophy on the fashion industry.

“It has the latitude to set prices and charge whatever it wants,” Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst for Forrester Research, said of Amazon in The New York Times. “That is a huge threat for brands.”

Sound familiar?

Amazon’s investment of millions into high-end fashion has the potential for much higher gross profit dollars per unit than books or CDs. The company is hiring photographers to produce 3,000 images a day for shoppers to browse. It’s also offering free shipping and returns on apparel to attract online customers to its online storefront. Amazon is working to recruit high-end fashion firms, such as Michael Kors, and was even a sponsor for the Costume Institute Benefit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Many in the industry worry they will not be able to compete with Amazon’s purchasing power and its willingness to undercut traditional retail markups. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo has said his firm will not take the low-price approach it’s used to disrupt other industries on its high-fashion project, but most are unconvinced.

“A manufacturer does not want to kill a business, and the best way to kill a business is to have the same product selling for less on Amazon,” said Ron Friedman, a retail accountant at Marcum LLP.

Incorrect Metadata Is An Issue for Publishers

Publishers understand the information about their e-books, such as author, title, and ISBN number, needs to be right. But, new Book Industry Study Group findings show that 95% of the metadata publishers use on their e-book titles is incorrect by the time it reaches the point of sales of online booksellers.

The research shows nearly half of the responding publishers use an automated system to check if their metadata on an online site is correct. A third check manually, while a fifth don’t bother to check their information at all. The study also suggests that when publishers are aware their metadata has been changed, about half have no idea where the change has occurred.

“When something is wrong at retail, it can be hard to fix because it isn’t clear where the change took place,” said Brian O’Leary of digital publishing consultancy Magellan Media, who is authoring the study. “If you don’t fix it at the source, it keeps coming back.”

E-Book Nation

This very cool infographic about the shift from print to digital reading material appeared at Online University.com. Scroll down to find who those e-consumers are, along with statistical information on e-reading habits. Americans seem to like e-readers when they want a book quickly, but still prefer print when reading to their kids or sharing the title.

Brought to you by: OnlineUniversities.com