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Dan Gillmor and textbooks
From: dfarber () me com
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:04:11 -0400
From: "Buzz Bruggeman" <Buzz () activewords com> To: <dave () farber net> Date: July 11, 2008 02:54:04 PM EDT Subject: RE: [IP] Dan Gillmor and textbooks Dave: I was just reading Dan's E-Mail below. I know a number of people on the Kindle team here in Seattle, and have thought a lot about books, text books (I am paying for my daughters education, books, etc.) and the Kindle. It seems to me that going forward there might be a different publishing model that might make sense. And it might work like this. For say $x you would be able to buy either a paper book or the eBook on the Kindle. The difference being that the eBook would come as a subscription, so that when the author updated it, you would automatically get the updates. The paper book would obviously not be updated, and to get an update you would need to buy the next edition. In my use case, the author would have a real financial incentive to update the eBook, as he would be getting more revenue from it. Also, the eBook model would be much more dynamic as the author could easily push out changes, editions, corrections. I am not sure how this all will play out, but I would be curious as to what those on your list might suggest. Best, Buzz Burton L. Bruggeman ActiveWords, Inc./Seattle buzz () activewords com 206.388.4747 206-388-4737 eFax www.activewords.com www.activewords.com/forum http://buzzmodo.typepad.com/buzznovation/ -----Original Message----- From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net] Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 10:12 AM To: ip Subject: [IP] Dan Gillmor and textbooks ________________________________________ From: Dan Gillmor [dan () gillmor com] Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 1:03 PM To: David Farber Subject: Re: textbooks Dave, The conversation about texts and pricing hits close to home with me, but in a good way. I've assigned my book as part of the reading in several classes, both at Berkeley when I was teaching there and now at Arizona State. But the students have had the option of buying it or downloading it, as the book was published under a Creative Commons license -- Tim O'Reilly's company is the publisher, and I could not have had a better partner for the project -- and was available as a download from its appearance in stores. Some students bought it, some didn't, reflecting what has happened more broadly. A new book project I'm working on will live mostly online (at least that's what I'm guessing) and will reflect the reality that the nature of what we call a book in the digital age is fundamentally changing. I still love holding a physical book in my hands, and I hope that people will want this one delivered that way. But readers/users will have many, many more options. Seems to me that texts, especially in areas where the state of art/ knowledge is shifting rapidly, should be done that way, and I expect that most probably will before too much longer. Dan ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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