Amazon launches eTextbook creator

[fjtorres]

Via Fortune:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazo...140000905.html

Amazon.com today announced KDP EDU, a new segment of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) designed to help educators and authors easily prepare, publish, and promote eTextbooks and other educational content for students to access on a broad range of devices, including Fire tablets, iPad, iPhone, Android smartphones and tablets, Mac, and PC. Educators and authors can use the public beta of Amazon’s new Kindle Textbook Creator tool to easily turn PDFs of their textbooks and course materials into Kindle books. Once the book is ready, authors can upload it to KDP in just a few simple steps to reach students worldwide. Get started today at kdp.amazon.com/edu.

Books created with Kindle Textbook Creator offer features for students and other readers that enhance the learning experience, including:

Multi-Color Highlighting—Highlight and categorize key concepts for easy reference.
Notebook—Capture key passages, images and bookmarks and automatically add them to the notebook. Students can add their own notes and easily access them from one location.
Flashcards—Create flashcards and study important terms, concepts, and definitions in each chapter with a simple, easy-to-use interface.
Dictionary—Find definitions and Wikipedia information for difficult terms to improve retention.
Buy Once, Read Everywhere—Read eTextbooks on the most popular devices students use, including Fire tablets, iPad, iPhone, Android tablets and smartphones, Mac, and PC.

More at the source and Amazon.

No mention of the eink readers but with the multicolor highlighting they're obviously targetting tablets.

[Nate the great]

The app makes Amazon PDF-ish format, and that's not supported by Kindles.
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...t-read-kindle/

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

The app makes Amazon PDF-ish format, and that's not supported by Kindles.
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...t-read-kindle/

Even if it were supported, the dependence on color would compromise the experience on the eink devices.

[Jessica Lares]

I hope these are still rentable and not something you have to buy outright?

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

I hope these are still rentable and not something you have to buy outright?

The titled would be sold via a KDP account. I don't think KDP includes an option for setting a rental price.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

I hope these are still rentable and not something you have to buy outright?

This is an extension of KDP so the intent is to foster indie publishing of textbook and classroom material. So sales rather than rentals but hopefully at reasonable rates.

[crich70]

I wonder what James Michener would have thought of it all. He started out as a textbook writer before turning to writing his epic fiction works.

[BuddyBoy]

I often wish some non-profit foundation would get around to publishing open-source textbook e-books for use world-wide in education. Give the authors, usually current teachers and/or professors, tax deductions for their contributions in lieu of payment.

Whene I first went to college, back before the earth's crust had cooled, we used to be shocked at the $35 - $45 textbook prices. When I went back to law school a decade or more ago it was $125 - $200 a book. I don't even want to look at what it is now, but if there ever was a market that's site of reality, the textbook market seem to be it.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

I often wish some non-profit foundation would get around to publishing open-source textbook e-books for use world-wide in education.

Perhaps you'd be interested in the CK12 Open Textbooks project? Only up to the high school level (and basic remedial college, I suppose), though, but what they have for their "FlexBooks" (downloadable in PDF, Mobi, & ePub) is generally quite well done and useful to learn from if not already acquainted with the particular subjects.

[fjtorres]

There is also this effort, among others, for university textbooks:
http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/

Open Textbook Library

As an instructor, you want your students to have the best textbooks possible. Unfortunately, not all students can afford the high cost of traditional textbooks.

You can change that!

You can ensure that ALL of your students will have access to your course textbook content. In addition, you can edit the textbooks to fit your courses and best meet the needs of your students.

Open textbooks are real, complete textbooks licensed so teachers and students can freely use, adapt, and distribute the material. Open textbooks can be downloaded for no cost, or printed inexpensively.

This library is a tool to help instructors find affordable, quality textbook solutions. All textbooks in this library are complete and openly licensed.

Six very reputable universities are partnered in it.

This one if from RICE UNIVERSITY:

https://openstaxcollege.org/books

This one links to a whole bunch of repositories:

http://open.bccampus.ca/open-textboo...pen-textbooks/

These sites aren't just for academics. Anybody with an interest in non-fiction can tap into them.

Combine them with the free online classes you can tap into (many with certificates of completion) and the internet becomes a free university for those with the desire to learn.

http://open.bccampus.ca/open-textboo...pen-textbooks/

If there's a will, there already are ways...

[tomsem]

I see no reason why this cannot be used for things other than textbooks (unless there is some fine print I haven't seen). For example, it would be vastly superior to Amazon's proprietary fixed layout format that's currently available for children's books and comic books (except for lack of 'panel view'), largely because it can have actual text (potentially accessible for tts etc) and smoothly scaling vector graphics. You could have a PDF file that is an order of magnitude smaller than the equivalent rendered as a series of images, reducing the download charges Amazon assesses. And annotation, and notebooks, etc.

They should dump their fixed layout format and add more features to this (panel view, audio, interactivity etc.)

[rolgiati]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

Whene I first went to college, back before the earth's crust had cooled, we used to be shocked at the $35 - $45 textbook prices. When I went back to law school a decade or more ago it was $125 - $200 a book. I don't even want to look at what it is now, but if there ever was a market that's site of reality, the textbook market seem to be it.

Could this be due in great part to the loss a lot value of the US$ over the years ?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rolgiati

Could this be due in great part to the loss a lot value of the US$ over the years ?

No.
Prices have gone up much faster and higher than inflation.
It is more along the lines of gouging a captive market because the people who pick the textbooks aren't paying for them. (And in many cases benefit from the higher prices.)

http://www.businessinsider.com/textb...flation-2014-4

[harriska2]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Perhaps you'd be interested in the CK12 Open Textbooks project?

The geometry for CK12 is pretty bad. Eventually we'll get good stuff that works for ALL kids that is computerized (like on the iPad). That way it teaches, ensures the student learns it, then tests the student and sends results to the teacher.

That's where I'm going with what I'm trying to do. A cross between 1 minute timings, write in your answer, get the answer, say if you got it right or wrong, then move on. The teacher gets a summary with work written on the device. (thinking math, here).

Then extend a quizlet like app to actually teach new stuff with 30 second to 3 minute videos that step you through a concept, require answers along the way, then fill in the blank worksheets to help memorization along with 1 minute timings of the information.

These proven methods of teaching can be done on tablets, I've just never seen them done CORRECTLY.

If only I could figure out github and xcode and how they work together!

http://poac-or.org/stories/math_fact_ipad_app_2nd_field
https://github.com/DeveloperPiatt/Math-Facts

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by BuddyBoy

I often wish some non-profit foundation would get around to publishing open-source textbook e-books for use world-wide in education.

Various state governments have passed mandates that open-source textbooks be created and used within the state. Some of these initiatives have gone further than otehrs, but the biggest obstacle is non-educators who see the funding of the project as a waste of taxpayer money.

When I went back to law school a decade or more ago it was $125 - $200 a book. I don't even want to look at what it is now

If you're majoring in theology or divinity, you'll have to use Bible software which has an MSRP of US$13,688. Depending upon who you purchase it from, and how you purchase it, you'll should end up spending between US$7,500 and US$12,400 for it.
If your really want to pay MSRP you can do so, but why would you want to, when discounts are readilly available, and openly advertised?
The upside is that the material included within the package should suffice for all of your courses. The downside is that once you graduate, the software will be obsolete, and you'll need to fork out another US$7,000 to stay current.