Just couple of days back we covered a feature on how and why Tablets are replacing Textbooks in classrooms and now we learn that Bookboon.com, an online Publishers is going a step further and offering free e-textbooks to students. The initiative aims to help those who find it difficult financing their studies. According to a report on CollegeBoard Tuition and fees constitute about 38% of the total budget for in-state students living on campus at public four-year colleges and universities, and less than 20% of the budget for public two-year college students who pay for off-campus housing. To top that, Academic textbooks are becoming expensive with Students spending an average of $1,168* a year on these books.
“We want to make it possible for students to go through university without having to spent money on textbooks at all. Our business model lets future employers pay the students’ textbooks”, says Thomas Buus Madsen, COO from bookboon.com.
Employer Branding
Even the corporate world has shown a keen interest in this noble initiative and has stepped forward to contribute. So, Bookboon’s textbooks are free thanks to the inclusion of a small number of employer branding and recruitment advertisements in the books. “The ads are targeted at specific students. If you are a Senior in Engineering, you will see relevant companies telling you about future career opportunities”, explains Buus Madsen.
Larry Walther, professor at Utah State University, published with Bookboon to help students; “Most books for an accounting class are around $200". Besides the cut of cost, e-textbooks offer new opportunities. Author Michael Templeton from Imperial College London “it is very convenient for students to have the opportunity to read books online and use search tools and other functions that come with online work”.
Rich content
Bookboon’s eBooks are written by professors from leading universities worldwide. “By carefully selecting our authors, we can guarantee the quality of our books. It is very important to us that our books meet the high academic standards demanded by universities” says Buus Madsen. Bookboon currently provides almost 800 textbooks for IT, Engineering and Finance students in the US.
More than 1500 free eBooks
Currently more than 1500 books from Bookboon are available, with new titles published every week. All the books from are available in PDF, which makes it possible to read them on a computer, tablet, e-reader or to print them on paper. Besides textbooks, readers can download business books and travel guides. All eBooks are written exclusively for the publisher by specialists and university professors. In 2011, 11 million books were downloaded worldwide and in 2012, 50 million downloads are expected.
