Does the
future of higher education textbooks lie in digital? If so, then that future’s
still a ways off, according to data gathered by Verba, which developed software
allowing campus stores to let their customers view competitors’ prices on
course materials.
Jared
Pearlman, co-founder of Verba, shared the findings of his company’s
data-gathering in the session Data-Driven Strategies for Course Materials at
CAMEX 2015 in Atlanta, GA. Verba tracked actual textbook purchases made by
students through the Compare software and found that sales of e-books doubled
in the past year, but still only accounted for 2.42% of total textbook sales.
“Digital is
still too expensive but, overall, we’re seeing some changes in the marketplace,”
Pearlman said. Those changes may bring prices down.
In cases
where students have a choice between a used print book or an e-book, about half
the time the used book is cheaper than the digital, he noted.
Most
academic e-books are available only as rentals. On average, a digital rental is
five times more likely to cost more than a print rental, Pearlman said. As a
result, print rental “outperforms digital by seven-and-a-half times,” he said.
But there’s
a potential game-changer in the works, according to Pearlman: inclusive access
pricing, also known as academic content licensing, subscription model, text
with tuition, course-fee model, and 100% sell-through model. This involves
providing each student with digital access to the required textbook for a fee,
which may be folded into tuition, that’s discounted from the usual retail price
because the publisher and store are guaranteed sales for the entire class.