Textbooks, let me introduce you to someone

Unless you've been under a rock, in a dark cave and in the far reaches of Siberia then you are well aware that the market in the midst of an upheavel. Whether it's the music, newpaper, or automobile industry nowhere is there a business that is not being faced with the dynamics of change. Including the textbook industry.

First we had wikipedia as a revolutionary tool with respect to encyclopedic information which was introduced to the world in 2001. Then there was the birth of the Kindle, introduced by Amazon in 2007. And with the latest generation/version getting a 4.5 star rating (out of 5) from almost half a million users, the ebook is here to stay.

Interestingly enough Seth Godin went on a textbook rant just a few days ago and said this:

I've spent the last few months looking at marketing textbooks. I'm assuming that they are fairly representative of textbooks in general, and since this is a topic I'm interested in, it seemed like a good area to focus on.

As far as I can tell, assigning a textbook to your college class is academic malpractice.

He then went on to explain how marketing textbooks are expensive, don't make change, don't sell the topic and are incredibly impractical.

And last but not least when the government is getting in on the action, you KNOW this is not some here today gone tomorrow trend. The other day I came across Governor Schwarzenegger's first-in-the-nation digital textbook initiative. According to the Govenor's office this initiative has the potential to save California's schools millions of dollars. The average textbook costs about $75 to $100 per student. For a school district with about 10,000 high school students, the use of free digital textbooks in just science and math classes could save up to $2 million dollars.

Now if you are in the business of making money from printing textbooks the signs are there. Change is happening. Innovate or die (just ask GM).