Amazon has just announced move that could constitute a true Killer feature for stimulating massive adoption by college students of ebooks — and Kindle ebooks in particular.
“Today, Amazon.com announced the launch of Kindle Textbook Rental–now students can save up to 80% off textbook list prices by renting from the Kindle Store,” the company said in a press release. “Tens of thousands of textbooks are available for the 2011 school year from leading textbook publishers such as John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis. Students can find details about the program at www.amazon.com/kindletextbooks.”
“Students tell us that they enjoy the low prices we offer on new and used print textbooks. Now we’re excited to offer students an option to rent Kindle textbooks and only pay for the time they need–with savings up to 80% off the print list price on a 30-day rental,” said Dave Limp, vice president, Amazon Kindle.
How effective will this program be in luring students to the Kindle platform? That will depend primarily on two things:
- How many heavily used textbooks will be included in the Textbook Rental program. It’s hard to get a handle on exactly what “tens of thousands” means — will students find most of their textbook needs met this way when they arrive back at school in a few weeks, or will the number included be small enough to be more of a frustration than a boon?
- How much will students be able to save? “Up to 80 percent,” says Amazon’s release, and a quick survey of titles such as Solomons/Fryhle’s Organic Chemistry, 8th Edition and Understanding Management, 7th Edition suggests that the Kindle rental prices may hit the sweet spot between saving money for students and creating a viable new ebook-based business model for textbook publishers, who have generally been the last to be dragged kicking and screaming to the ebook party.
Finally, it seems worthwhile to observe here that, like nearly everything else that Amazon has done in recent months, this move appears to be another important part of the set-up for the launch of a Kindle-compatible tablet from Amazon. Many of the textbooks available under the Kindle Textbook Rental program won’t look like much on a 6-inch e-Ink Kindle display, but I suspect they’ll look great both on a Kindle-compatible iPad and on the K-Tab which we expect Amazon to announce in the next few weeks.
Here’s the guts of Amazon’s news release this morning:
| Students Can Now Save Up To 80% with Kindle Textbook Rental |
| Low rental prices and flexible rental periods of any length between 30 and 360 days Margin notes and highlighted passages are stored in the Amazon Cloud for viewing anytime, anywhere – even after a rental expires SEATTLE, Jul 18, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — (NASDAQ: AMZN)– Today, Amazon.com announced the launch of Kindle Textbook Rental–now students can save up to 80% off textbook list prices by renting from the Kindle Store. Tens of thousands of textbooks are available for the 2011 school year from leading textbook publishers such as John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis. Students can find details about the program at www.amazon.com/kindletextbooks. “Students tell us that they enjoy the low prices we offer on new and used print textbooks. Now we’re excited to offer students an option to rent Kindle textbooks and only pay for the time they need–with savings up to 80% off the print list price on a 30-day rental,” said Dave Limp, vice president, Amazon Kindle. Kindle Textbook Rental offers the ability to customize rental periods to any length between 30 and 360 days, so students only pay for the specific amount of time they need a book. Students can also easily extend any rental period in increments as small as one day or choose to purchase the book they are renting at any time. “We’ve done a little something extra we think students will enjoy,” continued Limp. “Normally, when you sell your print textbook at the end of the semester you lose all the margin notes and highlights you made as you were studying. We’re extending our Whispersync technology so that you get to keep and access all of your notes and highlighted content in the Amazon Cloud, available anytime, anywhere – even after a rental expires. If you choose to rent again or buy at a later time, your notes will be there just as you left them, perfectly Whispersynced.” Kindle Textbooks are “Rent Once, Read Everywhere” as they can be read across the most popular devices with free Kindle Reading Apps for PC, Mac, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and Android-based devices. For more information about Kindle Textbook Rental, visit www.amazon.com/kindletextbooks. |