Amazon Unveils Kindle Textbook Rental

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
Messages
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Kindle could be your last textbook. Amazon announced a textbook rental program today available from 30 days to a full year. Even through this program, textbooks are still expensive when compared to regular book offerings. This is a good deal for students as long as the long-term rental is based on a sliding scale.

Textbook Rental books can be read on Kindles as well as via the Kindle apps for Mac, PC, iOS devices, and other mobile devices, too.
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This would be great for the elective classes I had in college such as English, Speech, and Sociology. But for my core classes, I will still prefer the book as I can keep them and I still reference them to this day in my job.
 
It will all come down to price. I would love to be able to rent a few textbooks a semester I need, but know I will never use again.
 
Wonder about those high price books though. You know, the 350$ books thats used for 16 weeks then they change to a new edition for next year ruining your resale.

Seriously though, International Editions are the way to go. Same books, 1/10th the price.
 
Whoever writes a "highlighter app" that works in Kindle textbooks is gonna make a gajizillion dollars. :)
 
Lycidas said:
Also illegal :p
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Nope they are not, the book providers want you to believe that.
They might end their contract with a seller for doing so, but importing an international edition is still leagl under US Law.
 
jandar said:
Nope they are not, the book providers want you to believe that.
They might end their contract with a seller for doing so, but importing an international edition is still leagl under US Law.
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Since there is no edit on news:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_King_v._L'anza
Opinion of the Court

The Supreme Court found that the copyright holder could not prevent re-importation of materials it had authorized.
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In other words, the book manufacturer authorizes international editions, and by US Law, cannot prevent the reimport of that international edition.
 
jandar said:
Wonder about those high price books though. You know, the 350$ books thats used for 16 weeks then they change to a new edition for next year ruining your resale.
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That's intentional, and the schools are in league with the publishers.

For something like computer science, you would expect books to change frequently.
But for History, English, etc there should be little in the way of changes.
Usually they just re-arrange a few chapters; just enough to make it difficult to use both the new & old books together, so they can sell all new books.

If a majority of the schools where to tell the published that they would only use books that are available for a minimum of 5-10 years, we could save a fortune on books & school costs.
 
I'm a student, this does seem like a neat idea. Too bad I dont have a kindle.
 
The one downside to this I can think of is missing out on long lasting reference material. Sure some of it gets outdated but a lot of the core information is good for a long time.
 
This would be awesome if they considered that most college students are broke and would JUMP at a chance to get them cheap for a term.
 
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