Thanks, Thomas. Bookbon.com is very cool. and might make life a little harder for Flat World. In any case, textbook publishers are toast.

I got the link from a Thomas, a commenter on a previous post. It looks like Bookbon.com earns their money by selling ads in textbooks. That should pass the "why wouldn't I do that" test.

Imagine an email to anyone in any K -12 school district that had the subject line:

"I can show you a way to save all the money you are spending on textbooks."

Then put QR code based advertising that are for public health, governance and non profits.
No Commercial Enterprises.

I bet that Bookbon.com would be interested in printernet publishing and variable QR codes. It would allow them to deliver books instead of PDFs. Get a small margin on the print versions. Plus if they did variable QR codes, it would be much less intrusive than display ads. Plus it would allow them to deliver just the right QR codes to just the right person at just the right time.

Plus if you get in the designer QR codes that are now appearing in Japan, the advertisements would be a feature, not a bug. Two pages of QR codes at the end of the book is a much more efficient use of paper real estate. If they can fill four or five pages, they could probably give away the print versions and still make money.

Giving away the print pieces, offering the PDF for download for free, offering the ebook version for free (I still have to check if I can get them on my Kindle. I'm hoping I can.)

"Acaba is over there. It's only a matter of going." Laurence of Arabia.

Textbooks - Download free ebooks:
"Bookboon provides online textbooks for students in PDF format. The free ebooks can be downloaded without registration. Our books are legal and written exclusively for Bookboon. They are financed by a few in-book ads."