AfterDawn: News

Macmillan launches 'DynamicBooks,' customizable digital textbooks

Publishing giant Macmillan has announced today the launch of it's own DynamicBooks software platform, allowing professors to edit digital textbooks without approval of the original author.

The instructors can add or delete text, re-arrange chapters, and add their own media and charts, using a simple online authoring tool.



The digital textbooks will go up for sale via dynamicbooks.com and through college book stores, and will be quite significantly cheaper then their print counterparts. For example, the New York Times shows the book "Psychology," which has MSRP of $135, but retails for about $120 at most big book stores. The DynamicBooks version will retail for $48.76 and can be viewed on computers and the iPhone.

Android and iPad support is expected soon.



Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 23 Feb 2010 17:56

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• 2 comments

• six60six

  to think that a digital book should be anywhere near the cost of a dead tree version. that is what is wrong. once something can be replicated near infinitely for nearly no cost, the value drops incredibly. unless, you want to apply some unnatural form of property law that totally skews the basics of supply & demand economics. also, i'm sure they kill the first sale doctrine on these, too.

  25.2.2010 09:28 #1

• clotus

  The only question I have is... What litigation exists to prevent a professor from changing the textbook and requiring his/her students to purchase the 'revised' version? How will they deal with the profits going to the proper place. In no way should the professors see a penny, being that it isn't their IP; it is someone else's IP with their spin on it...

  25.2.2010 14:21 #2