Free college textbooks


Ads could pay for textbooks
This is actually from last week, but I didn't get to it.

Textbook prices are soaring into the hundreds, but in some courses this fall, students won't pay a dime. The catch: Their textbooks will have ads for companies including FedEx Kinko's and Pura Vida Coffee.

Selling ad space keeps newspapers, magazines, websites and television either cheap or free for users. But so far, the model hasn't caught on with college textbooks.
Now, a small Minnesota start-up is trying to shake up the status quo in the $6-billion college textbook industry.

Freeload Press Inc. will offer more than 100 titles this fall — mostly for business courses — completely free. After filling out a five-minute survey, students can download the text of the book, which can be stored on a hard drive and printed.

The model faces big obstacles. Freeload doesn't have a roster of well-known authors across a range of subjects, and it lacks the editorial and marketing muscle of the "Big Three" textbook publishers: Thomson Learning, Pearson Education and McGraw-Hill Education.

St. Paul, Minn.-based Freeload's numbers are modest so far: 25,000 users have registered and 50,000 books have been downloaded.

I think it's a pretty good idea, if they can make it work.

And if the big textbook companies don't conspire to drive them out of business.

Hat tip Juliaki.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - September 15, 2006 at 05:28 AM  Tag


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