RentScouter

Amazon is entering the textbook rental landscape by launching their Kindle Rental program today.  Amazon’s textbook buyback credit program is doing very well with their high prices, but they are very late to the online textbook rental market dominated by players like BookRenter and Chegg.  However, never discount Amazon which is willing to lose money on items or in a new market to gain market share.  They have been heavily marketing to college students with their Amazon Student Savings Program which offers free two day shipping on the millions of textbooks available at Amazon.  Amazon is claiming to save college students up to 80% if you rent textbooks on the Kindle.

Nothing new with how much renting textbooks online for college can save students – so does Amazon offer anything new versus the established online book rental companies or other electronic textbook companies like Kno?  The program apparently allows college students rent books from 30 to 360 days, which is nothing new, and that thousands of textbook titles are immediately available from top higher education publishers like Elsevier, Taylor&Francis, and John Wiley & Sons – again nothing new.  Amazon is allowing students to store highlighted content and book notes in the Amazon cloud, even after the textbook rental period has expired which is a new twist, but how useful?  Kindle textbooks are supposedly in a format that can be read on a variety of mobile platform via Amazon’s Kindle reading apps.

Well, let’s see Amazon:

1) College students can control their online book rental time period – nothing new

2) Textbook rentals can save students up to 80% versus new textbooks – nothing new

3) Electronic textbooks can be viewed and read on a variety of devices – nothing new

4) Offering thousands of books for rent online – nothing new

5) Students can save notes and highlighted content in the Amazon cloud – new, but useful?

The RentScouter team is not amazed by the Kindle Textbook Rental Program, but considering Amazon’s aggressive pricing tactics this could result in great textbook rental prices for college students.

How does Amazon’s textbook rental program compare to some of the others out there:

NOOKStudy – You get a free seven day trial period before you have to purchase or rent your school book for 180 days.  This is a more comprehensive offering versus Kindle Book rentals as it offers students a hub to digitize their schedule, store notes, homework, or class schedule information.  However, it isn’t currently available on mobile platforms.

Kno – Textbooks on the iPad, what else needs to be said?  Well, it is a good start, but we have reported that students still prefer printed textbooks almost 9 to 1.  However, as we covered Kno has some unique features in their quest for offering cheap textbooks online including social sharing – “WTF”.  Perhaps a great program, but no option for Window OS users at this time.

Inkling – The app is free and you can rent college books by chapter online instead of having to buy the entire textbook.  Great concept, but again limited to the iPad and their library has less than 1,000 book titles currently – we hope it grows.

Chegg’s eBooks – What does one of the leader’s in traditional college textbook rentals offer?  An online only service with a good selection of school book titles, but limited to PC users only.

Your best bet is probably still a textbook rental, but electronic texbook options are growing rapidly and offer promise in the coming years.

Where to get textbooks as cheap as possible if not free?

Well, free is not always an option, but many college students wonder where to find textbooks for cheap?

1. Get a textbook price comparison of buying used textbooks online versus an online textbook rental.
2. If you need a free textbook ask around to borrow one, or see our resource list below.
3. Check Craigslist as another place where to get textbooks for cheap.
4. Check your local and college libraries as they might have a copy.
5. Remember to factor textbook buy back prices if you buy a textbook versus a textbook rental when determining total cost.
6. Be considerate, but your professor might have their free textbook review copy to lend you

Where to find textbooks for free?  Top 10+ sites where to get textbooks for free:

Google’s Free eBooks – Here is a list of the top ebooks found at Google’s eBookstore

Online Mathematics Textbooks – A growing list of free mathematics textbooks hosted by Georgia Tech University, Atlanta, Georgia

Project Gutenberg – Free ebook site started by Michael Hart, did you know the first ebook was created on July 4, 1971?

WikiBooks – A huge collection of open content textbooks that anyone can edit or download free

TextbookRevolution – A student run organization with huge growing list of free online textbooks and educational materials

Flat World Knowledge – Since 2009 their free textbooks have been adopted by over 1600 professors at over 900 schools in over 40 countries

Free High School Science Texts – Volunteers created free science books to help support high school education in South Africa

FreeBooks4Doctors – The place to download free medical textbooks on the internet

FreeTechBooks – Hundreds of free technical and computer books to download as open source, lots of free computer programming books

BookBon – Free ebooks for student and travelers written exclusively for UK based BookBon – financed by sparse in book ads

Open Educational Resources Consortium – Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) has over 500 open source textbooks for viewing and downloading for free

cK-12 Flexbooks – Customizable free textbooks digitized on multiple platforms focused on the K-12 market

Did we miss any websites on our search for where to get textbooks for free?  We actually just gave you 12 sites where you can find textbooks for free.  However, please leave us a comment below if there are others to include in the list for free textbooks online.

A textbook according to Wikipedia is:

A textbook or coursebook (UK English) is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions. Although most textbooks are only published in printed format, many are now available as online electronic books.

The article continues with facts and figures about the broken textbook market that President Obama called a “scam” and “a huge racket” during his campaign, but no need to rehash the high cost of textbooks.

Here at RentScouter we are always on the search on where to get textbooks for cheap if you can’t get them free.

A brief highlighting of our current textbook rental and used textbook companies:

BookRenter – One of the first in the business to offer textbook rentals

Chegg – Not the first, but definitely the biggest company to rent textbooks by many standards

CampusBookRentals – Great place to rent books and support their charitable causes.

TextbookStop – Innovative new textbook rental company offering their “RentBack” option

And some of the finest companies that buy back textbooks when you sell back used books for cash:

Powell’s Books – A Portland institution that buys all kinds of weird used books, but tough on condition

BookByte – One of the oldest in the business of buying back books, sells through McKenzie Books

First Class Books – Roots in the Southwest, in business over a decade, fast service

TextbooksRus – Also known as “Bookstores”, based in Ohio, one of the largest textbook buyback companies

Amazon Textbook Buyback – Only Amazon credit for trade-ins, but usually the best sell back price, watch condition, we discuss Amazon credit versus cash for textbooks and their special Amazon Student Savings program.

SellBackYourBook – Solid performer that wants your DVDs, CDs, Video Games, and calculators

CKY Books – Solid company that will return rejected textbooks, good customer service

Blue Rocket Books – Sometimes slow, but solid textbook buy back prices, and for every book they buy they donate to a worthy cause

Better World Books – Buys and sells millions of books online to support global literacy initiatives – cheap shipping

Moola4Books – Older company that just started online book buyback, usually good prices

You can’t always find free textbooks, but we can help you find where to get textbooks for cheap, or sell them for the highest price.

 

South Korea’s Education Ministry has announced it wants all school age level educational materials to be delivered in a digitized format by 2015.  It hopes that by 2014 all elementary level materials will be read on a variety of computers, smart phones, and tablets.  No specific equipment choices have been made, but the Ministry did announce it will spend up to 2.4 billion buying the necessary tablets, software, and digitizing the necessary school curriculum.

Some Korean schools already are using electronic textbooks via notebook computers and tablets.  However, it is very unlikely that the South Korean government would pick the Apple iPad as its tablet of choice.  It is much more likely to pick tablets manufactured by South Korean electronics manufacturing company, Samsung.  This could be a very nice windfall for Samsung and its Galaxy tablet or some variant.

Why would the Galaxy need modification?  The folks who brought us the Kno Tablet did lots of research on students that buy textbooks online or hope to rent textbooks online, whether digital or otherwise, instead of purchasing a printed textbook.

What a student needs, according to Kno’s research, is something that faithfully reproduces a full-size textbook, without compromise.  In contrast, the attempt to cram a textbook onto a smaller screen is a primary reason that previous trials with replacing textbooks with tablets and e-readers such as the Kindle DX have been abject failures.

This move will be watched by governments and manufacturers worldwide as everyone is wondering about the future of electronic textbooks.  It also awakens the argument about whether students learn better from printed or digital textbooks.  Another reason digital textbooks have not taken off in the United States is the cost when compared to buying a cheap used textbook online or renting college textbooks online.  The initial cost is still much higher, but currently their is no cash sell back value for electronic textbooks, nor can they be transferred.  Now that Kno has given up on hardware manufacture and is now focused on a software solution for cheap textbooks and trying the novel “Words to Friends” approach we detailed about a month ago.