NEWS FEATURE

A. MARTIN

NATURE|Vol 458|2 April 2009

The textbook of the future

Undergraduate textbooks are going digital. Declan Butler asks how this will shake up student
reading habits and the multi-billion-dollar print textbook market.

he rumble of textbooks thumping on to

the desks of a university lecture theatre,
the rustle of turning pages, the groan of
backpack straps hoisting 10 kilograms
of textbooks these sounds may soon be an
echo of the past. This semester, 1,200 students
at the University of Texas at Austin (UTA) are
foregoing printed textbooks in a pilot trial of
Amazon Kindle e-readers stuffed with texts in
electronic form. At NorthWest Missouri State
University (NWMSU) in Maryville, classes
are testing textbooks on Sony e-readers, as
well as on the students own laptops, as part of
plans to roll out e-textbooks across all courses
within 5 years. The list goes on: within the past
18 months or so, as textbook publishers have
begun to make more and more titles available
online, universities worldwide have begun to
experiment with e-textbooks.
E-textbooks are not yet mainstream but
they are on the edge of a breakthrough into the
mainstream, says Kevin Hegarty, UTA chief
financial officer. Indeed, textbook publishers
are scrambling to position themselves for a
revolution in the way they do business as they
568

rethink their decades-old model of massive,

printed tomes sold at premium prices.
The resulting proliferation of new models
none of which is yet a sure winner is being
shaped by the interplay of at least three forces:
new e-readers and displays for viewing and
interacting with the e-textbook content; new
business and licensing models for delivering
quality content at prices students and universities can afford; and new concepts for the content itself, and for how it is created.

Beyond black and white

On the hardware front, e-textbooks are reaping
the benefits of rapid innovation in electronic
readers for documents and novels. Most
of the latest generation of e-readers, such
as Amazons Kindle 2 and Sonys PRS-700,
offer displays based on technology from the
E-Ink Corporation of Cambridge, Massachusetts (see Nature doi:10.1038/news.2009.202;
2009). These displays produce text and
images that rival the brightness and clarity of
ink on paper, which makes reading them far
more comfortable than reading text on the
2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

liquid crystal display screens of laptops and

desktop computers. They also allow an e-readers
batteries to last for days: the displays require
power only when the screen is being changed
for example, by turning a page. The first
generation of such e-readers, launched less
than three years ago, has already sparked mass
uptake of e-books, and they could potentially
do the same for e-textbooks.
As delivery vehicles for textbooks, however,
existing e-readers still leave a lot to be desired.
For example, most are designed for reading
books from beginning to end. But very few
students read a textbook in that manner, says
Paul Klute, who is directing the NWMSU
e-textbook project. He recalls how the school
launched its pilot test of the Sonys PRS-505
reader in autumn 2008 with e-textbooks from
six publishers. It was an instant flop with the
200 student testers. They wanted to do what
they had always done, says Klute, and flip
through to find bits they didnt grasp in the
lecture, or dip in to read short sections, or find
a key figure. But the e-reader wasnt built for
this, so they ended up frustrated. This semester,

PLASTIC LOGIC

Sony has replaced the device with the newer e-readers, laptops, portable music players and
PRS-700. Its search and navigation functions smart phones. The boundaries will increasingly
and the ability to flip a page by swiping a finger blur, predicts Neelan Choksi, co-founder and
across the touch screen have elicited a much chief operating officer of Lexcycle, a company
more positive response, Klute says.
based in Portland, Oregon, that makes Stanza,
Another drawback of current e-readers is that a popular e-book reader application for the
they have small black-and-white displays, just a iPhone. Everyone is racing to be the ultimate
little larger than 9 by 12 centimetres. This makes multi-function device, he says.
them unsuited to most science textbooks, which
typically have large pages and colourful graph- Kindling a revolution
ics. The market is not likely to expand until the But device innovation has other implications
e-readers improve, says Hegarty.
as well. Just as the Internet brought dramatic
Many large textbook companies are change to the music industry, which relied on
holding off from experimenting with e-readers selling content on a physical medium, such as
until that happens. But manufacturers prom- the CD, better devices could similarly disrupt
ise that big screen, colour e-readers are on the textbook industry. So it is not surprising
the way within a year or two. If so, this will that textbook publishers embrace of e-textbe the tipping point at which e-textbooks books is reminiscent of two scorpions mating.
take off, predicts Hegarty. It will be a big leap
Like the music industry, textbook publishers
forwards, he says.
have been reluctant to put content online
If the price is right. Dedicated e-readers because of concerns about piracy, and the risk
currently start at prices of
that it might undermine sales
around US$350, points out
their traditional print ediEveryone is rushing to of
Joe Esposito, a digital-media
tions. If they are now willing
be the ultimate multiconsultant and former chief
to do so, it is largely because
executive of Encyclopaedia
such concerns have been
functioning device.
by the realization that
Britannica online. Reading an
Neelan Choksi offset
e-textbooks may give them
e-textbook on a laptop might
a way to cut into the largest
not be as easy on the eyes, but
most students already own a laptop complete threat to their profits: the huge market for
with a colour display. The student laptop will second-hand textbooks.
prove a potent competitive entry barrier to other
Thanks to the Internet, what was once the
devices for reading e-textbooks, says Esposito. preserve of local used bookstores is now a vast
This is why NWMSU is also piloting e-textbooks and sophisticated international online market.
on laptops among 500 students in 11 disciplines The US market for new textbooks is estimated
in an effort to compare how well students learn at around $5.5 billion, but the parallel market
with e-readers, laptops and print textbooks.
for used books is around one-third of that,
That is probably a wise approach. Five years says Esposito. Publishers hope that by offerago, devices such as the Kindle did not even ing lower priced e-textbooks they can oblitexist. Which devices students will use for read- erate the used-textbook market, from which
ing e-textbooks five years from now is anybodys they currently get nothing, and sell electronic
guess although many people are betting versions semester after semester presumon some sort of convergent evolution among ably with frequent updates, analogous to the

Students say they would prefer to have print textbooks until they are offered a cheaper option.
2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

J. LEE/BLOOMBERG NEWS/LANDOV/PA

NEWS FEATURE

NATURE|Vol 458|2 April 2009

Amazons Kindle: bringing technology to book.

new print editions they regularly bring out.

But publishers enthusiasm for e-textbooks
remains relative, says Esposito. E-textbooks
are too big a market for publishers to walk
away from, but publishers are not willing to
walk away from the print market that makes
up more than 90% of their sales. This defence
of the print market is reflected in their offerings, which are usually electronic facsimiles of
printed textbooks, sold to students online, and
which provide only the most basic functionality, such as printing, highlighting and making
electronic annotations.
By far the largest market for textbooks is the
United States, and the companies that win in
this space are also likely to be those that will
dominate worldwide. Because of this, it is also
likely to be where the evolution of e-textbook
business models plays out.
The biggest player is CourseSmart, a
consortium in Belmont, California, created
by the five publishers who together account
for roughly 85% of the global print textbook
market: Pearson; Cengage Learning; McGrawHill Education; John Wiley & Sons; and the
Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group.
(The last is a unit of Macmillan, which is
owned by Natures parent company, the Georg
von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group based in
Stuttgart, Germany.) We have brought a
critical mass of textbooks together on a single
common platform for the first time, says Sean
Devine, chief executive of CourseSmart.
CourseSmart sells its e-textbooks at about
half the price of its print versions, and so far has
made more than 5,800 e-textbooks available
at its website, or about one-third of the worlds
569

NEWS FEATURE

most popular textbooks. Students who buy the

books are constrained by digital rights management. The copy they buy usually expires
after their course has ended, after which it no
longer accessible. CourseSmarts digital rights
management also forbids students from moving a book downloaded on one computer to
another device, limits printing to 10 pages at a
time, and allows the whole book to be printed
only once.

Bulk buying
Nonetheless, student purchases of CourseSmart
e-textbooks are growing rapidly, says Devine.
A survey by NWMSU in February found that,
all things being equal, about half the students
would prefer print textbooks and about a
quarter would prefer e-textbooks, whereas the
remainder had no strong feeling. But when
asked what they would do if buying a textbook
themselves, almost 80% said they would opt for The multi-function iPhone: one ring to rule them all?
the cheaper e-textbook offering.
Ongoing tests of CourseSmart e-textbooks hardcopy books, he says.
Klute also favours such a scheme. NWMSU
by the University System of Ohio show that
they reduce costs the average US student already spends around $800,000 a year on tens
forks out some $900 annually on print text- of thousands of copies of print textbooks that it
books and students using them perform just rents to students, who are charged $80$90 per
as well as when using paper versions, says Peter semester for textbook provision. He thinks that
Murray, deputy head of new service develop- using an e-textbook site licence could at least
ment at the Ohio Library and Information halve that cost to students.
Network in Columbus, Ohio, which assists the
Such a model is being tested by the UK
National E-books Observatory project. The
University System of Ohio on the project.
But Make Textbooks Affordable, a coalition project has licensed from publishers 36 e-textof US student groups, thinks that students are books in business and management, medicine,
being fleeced, and that the price of renting media studies and engineering from Septeman electronic file, which costs little for pub- ber 2007 to August 2009 at a cost of 600,000,
lishers to distribute, is excesand made them available free
sive. Indeed, if an e-textbook
Cheap prices are the to all UK universities. It is the
typically costs half that of the
most effective digital- future, says Liam Earney, colprint version, the saving is less
lections team manager of the
rights management.
impressive when one considers
Joint Information Systems
that buyers of new print books
Eric Frank Committee, based in Lonwould recoup much the same
don a body established by
by reselling, and students might pick up used Britains higher-education funding councils to
versions for the same price or less.
support education by promoting technological
Charging half the price of a printed textbook innovation which operates the pilot.
for an e-book that expires is far too costly,
says Hegarty. Rather than leaving students to Open source
act as isolated agents in the marketplace, he A more radical idea is to offer textbooks for
says, universities, or consortia of universities, free, without rights restrictions. A range of
should step in and use their bulk-purchasing free, open textbooks are already available for
clout to force down prices by negotiating site download at WikiBooks (http://en.wikibooks.
licences to e-textbooks, just as many do for org); the Community College Consortium
online versions of scientific journals. E-text- for Open Educational Resources Open Textbooks procured this way could be made free at Books Project; and Connexions, created in
the point of use to all on campus, or for flat fees 1999 by electrical engineer Richard Baraniuk
included in tuition fees. The winning model of Rice University in Houston Texas. These
will involve licensing content broadly such that texts typically take the form of modules writthe library licenses the materials, the profes- ten by many expert authors.
sors assigns them and the student electroniFor now these free textbooks remain a
cally checks them out of the library as they do cottage industry, says Esposito. Wikipedia-like
570

2009 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

volunteer efforts are much better suited to

self-contained modules that are small enough
for an individual to see through from A to Z.
But a textbook demands a coherent overall
structure and coordination between sections.
That is why creating one has always been a
major undertaking, demanding long-term
commitments by publishers who need to
make a profit and by authors who usually
want to be paid for their effort.
Still, perhaps free and profitable need not
be a contradiction in terms. One group of veteran textbook publishing executives is trying
to put open textbooks on a solid commercial
footing. In 2007 they created Flat World Knowledge, based in Nyack, New York, and in January 2009 rolled out the first of the 21 textbooks
they have in development so far. The texts are
written by some 40 domain experts who will
be paid 20% of royalties. The company also
plans to make its content available via Kindle
and other e-readers. All its content will be free
to reuse for non-commercial purposes under a
creative commons licence.
Eric Frank, Flat Worlds co-founder, says that
the strategy is to attract greater use by giving the
e-textbooks away the initial targets are the
high-volume texts for first-year students and
then look for profit from students purchase of
print-on-demand versions at $29.95 for black
and white, and $59.95 for colour. Students can
copy and use the electronic content in any way
they wish, says Frank. Cheap prices are the
most effective digital-rights management, he
says. We want to avoid a digital-rights war with
students. The company also hopes to make
money by licensing its content to commercial
companies, such as distance-learning outfits
and course-management software firms.
By making its content free for reuse, Flat
World Knowledge will allow lecturers to splice
and dice its content. More and more professors want to teach from customized textbooks,
which are aggregations of various materials, not
just what a publisher has aggregated in a single
book, says Hegarty. He says that the UTA has
made an electronic tool available for academics to aggregate any licensed library materials,
including scientific journals, and publish them
to their students as their textbook materials. I
think that this is where textbooks are headed.
In the larger sense, of course, no one really
knows where e-textbooks are headed. They just
know that things are moving very fast. About all
thats certain, says Klute, is that the next chapter
of e-textbooks is now being written. E-textbooks
as we currently know them will look drastically
different five years from now.

Declan Butler is a senior reporter at Nature,

based in France.
See Editorial, page 549.

M. LENNIHAN/AP

NATURE|Vol 458|2 April 2009