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Amazon to Sell Books by Page, Display Books You Own
Josuah writes "Forbes is reporting that Amazon plans to sell books by the page, so you could purchase only the excerpt you're interested in. What I found more interesting though was the mention of a program called Amazon Upgrade, which will allow you to view books you own from any web browser. Sounds awfully similar to the MP3.com case. I'm guessing Amazon Upgrade also means you need to purchase all your books from Amazon. Interesting value-add proposition."
Sucks for you then, because pretty soon 1. Congress will pretty much force the publishers to sell international editions at the same markup as our versions 2. the publishers are already offering etexts at about a 45% of new book cost. Why is 2 bad? Because you can't sell back your license. As for getting back only $20, blame your professor(s) for not adopting the same text semester after semester, and blame yourself for (most likely) going to sell back on the day of the exam. Most buybacks buy a certain number of known adopted books for around half of new book price. So, basically, you could always buy used books for about 75% of new, sell it back for 50% of new and only ever pay 25% of new book price for any text.
How do I know this?
I manage a textbook department responsible for a $3million piece of our company-wide $8million dollar company pie.
Oh, I'm with you on the outrageous prices and how horrible it is, but I suggest you do more research and put the blame where it goes: the publishers and your professors.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?