Horseplay-on-Ladders

Hi Yak, (Jacob here--the other textbook expert.

It's great to hear from you because you are "in it." You see first hand how textbooks are not about educating...they are about making money. It's gotten so bad that for some books, publishers aren't even worrying about changing editions any more. They just reprint the book with a different ISBN and give that ISBN to the world. It goes on and on.

You are correct. We have a vested interest in the textbook market, and here's some Reddit honesty, we do profit how the market works. Every time a new edition comes out, it's worth a lot more on the used market than the old one, and it's something we can resell.

That said, in a very real way, PageLess has the ability to hamstring our original business model. We basically took all the "tricks of the trade" that we have learned over the years and published them to the world. If everyone used PageLess, no one would purchase higher margin items from us. They would only buy cheaper, lower margin items. Not only that, PageLess emphasizes the savings that renting and digital books can bring...and we don't sell digital items or rent books. So in a way, if PageLess succeeds, my textbook business will suffer and may not even survive...but boy does it feel better to be working for the students and against the system...rather than just our old model, which you accurately note makes us complicit with the current system--even if we didn't create it.

Ha! The textbook industry is changing so much, and Publishers are doing so much to maintain control of their content so it can't be resold, that us going extinct is a distinct possibility!

If we stayed in the textbook industry, I could envision us becoming a consulting firm for institutions of higher learning as well as hybrid schools that mesh highschool with college. With what we know, we could easily bring big savings for schools and students. For example, we could meet with professors and help them help their students. Clueless professors are a big part of the problem.

If we do something else entirely...well, I was thinking about being a high school English teacher (for reals). Whadayathink? I would teach a different Thomas Hardy, novel every year.

Oh, yeah! now you are talking! programs like cengage unlimited might be the key to the future of textbooks. in fact, with our PageLess tool, we are able to identify any time a student searches for an item in the cengage catalog. The very first thing we offer them on our site is cengage unlimited, and we also explain what it is. basically, if you need an access code, Cengage unlimited is always the best route to go. if you need more than one book or access code, from Cengage, Cengage unlimited is going to save you a ton. We make sure to highlight this fact but then give students the choice for what they want to buy.

Have you ever used Cengage unlimited or know anyone who has? I'd be interested to hear about the experience.

Really appreciate it, and thanks for engaging. You made me think about something in a way I have never thought about it before, which is pretty great.

Jacob

Hey, Retorquere,

Thanks for taking the time to reach out. So, we really want to honor the Reddit community. Had we just explained our tool in detail, we felt the post would have become more of an ad for the product we created, and we didn't want to do that. Make sense? That said, while we tried to make our tool as intuitive and user-friendly as possible, we are doing some really wild things that need a bit of explanation. So, as briefly as I can, PageLess does three main things.

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1. It puts students in control by giving them every option for the material they need.  There are more options than they think--even for things like access codes.
2. It simplifies class material into its component parts.  Publishers make a ton of money on high priced “packages” that contain more than one item.  We’ve found that if we break that package down into its individual items and have students buy only what they need, they can save dumb amounts of money. 
3. It compares prices for all buying and renting options across the internet to find students the best deal after they decide what to buy.

BTW, No other tool in the world is doing #1 and #2. I know that sounds insane, but I challenge the Reddit community to find another site/tool doing what we do.

So, specific to your question, Retorquere, when you search ISBN 0135983363 at www.pageless.us, the first thing we do is ask you if you need the access code that comes with this book. You see, we instantly identified that the ISBN was for a book + code package.

If you answer, yes, you do need the code, we take you to the results page where you can buy whatever you want, including the ISBN you searched for $142.42, which is the cheapest price on the internet for that ISBN. BUT, the magic of what we have created is that it contains our knowledge. We ARE actual textbook experts. So, with our special knowledge, we know that the access code in question already comes with an eBook. So, if money is an issue, you could just buy the code you need for class and use the eBook that comes with it. Boom. $110.00 in savings.

Now, if you search ISBN 0135983363 and say, "No, I don't need the code." Now we can really rock and roll. Now you just need the book, but you would NEVER want to buy the used book on ISBN 0135983363. Those are going to be way overpriced because they are listed on the book + code page, but are used so have no code. So we give the student 4 alternative formats to choose from to get the content they need, and then we give them a rental and a purchase option for each. This student has gone from one crappy, expensive choice to eight cheaper choices--none of which is the ISBN/format they originally searched.

Does this help, or does it just muddy everything up? I chose that ISBN because it really does highlight some of the coolest and most revolutionary things PageLess can do, but it's also a complex example.

DuckDuckOhNo,

Thanks for your question. The answer is that in the last 5 years or so, there are LOTS of folks trying to do exactly what you suggest. An example would be OpenStax as someone mentioned above. The problem is that educators tend to have a high standard of the material they teach, so something like an opensource textbook where lots of people can contribute/edit would probably not pass muster with them. They want experts in the field providing the information. Secondly, the content creation, production, manufacture, distributing, etc etc all costs a lot of money. We aren't arguing that publishers shouldn't make money from the value they add. We are saying that there is no reason why a stack of papers glued and bound together should ever cost $300.00.

But, yes, there are lots of movements focused on getting free courseware available for students, and it's gaining ground. here's a good article that talks about it. https://www.credible.com/news/student-loans/movement-to-provide-free-textbooks-for-stem-students-gets-4-9m-boost/