Thursday, June 4, 2009

Textbook Publishers: Flat World Knowledge is starting to nibble at your lunch. But great news for the printernet!

I got my email newsletter this morning from Flat World Knowledge. Here's the neat part for the printernet. It's the thing about "provide paperbacks and self print versions." Somebody should be talking to these folks. I bet they never thought of using variable QR codes and clickable Print.

I wonder who's going to get the clicks?


Our books cost $0 online. We provide paperbacks, audio books, and self-print versions for under $30. Our books are open for you to edit for your class. Our new editions are on your terms. We publish them - you decide if and when to use them.

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2 comments:

  1. TBMJune 4, 2009 at 10:03 AM

    I've found a real no bullshit free book publisher. www.bookboon.com You cannot even register, you can only download the textbook in PDF, and then there are a few HR ads in it to finance the thing. I don't even think you can buy anything on the website at all, its all free textbooks.

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  2. Coordinator of the Printernet ProjectJune 4, 2009 at 10:22 AM

    Cool. I'll check them out.

    But I don't understand the "bullshit" part. Flat World is totally non bullshit, as far as I can tell. They say you get the book for free and we make money by selling you other stuff.

    My first question whenever I get to an enterprise is how are they going to make money. For example, in my blogs, I've tried to make it absolutely clear that I'm retired, so making money is a "nice to have" but not a "must have."

    Since blogspot is free and easy, the marginal cost of freely bloviating and maybe making a difference in high school ed, only costs me time. Happily after 37 years in the game, I've plenty of hours to fill doing interesting things. Plus it does make it much easier to figure out how to keep my IRA straight.

    I'll check out bookbon.If I think it's cool, I'll bloviate about it.

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