Alternative Business Models in EM

Models with Books in Public Domain

Authorama
Authorama is a project by German blogger and programmer Philipp Lenssen to create a non-comprehensive repository of public domain books in "easily readable HTML format" (Lenssen). Using textual sources such as Project Gutenberg, Lenssen formats a more or less random assortment of public domain fiction and non-fiction works into XHTML 1 Strict and chapterizes them for easier reading through the Authorama website. The status of the project is unknown. Lenssen, who appears to be the sole maintainer of the website, has a full list of his projects and websites at http://www.outer-court.com/ and can be contacted at info[at]authorama[dot]com.
Literature.org - The Online Literature Library
Similar to Authorama, Literature.org is a project run by enthusiasts to provide "full and unabridged texts of classic works of English literature", already in the public domain ('An Online Library of Literature'). The project uses previously transcribed content at such sites as Wiretap and Project Gutenberg ('Literature.org FAQ'), re-formatted in HTML and cataloged according to author's name. The status of the project is unknown. The Literature.org domain name is registered under Peter Galbavy and supposedly supported by Knowledge Matters Ltd. (also run by Peter Galbavy), whose contact is listed as peter[at]literature[dot]org.

Models with Copyrighted Books

Startups

BookBoon
BookBoon.com is an online publisher of free ebooks, downloadable in PDF format, and containing "relevant advertisements on every third page on average" ('About BookBoon'). "The books are targeted at engineering students, IT students, and students of economy and finance" (ibid.). All titles are written for and only available from BookBoon and are copyrighted by their respective authors and Ventus Publishing ApS. BookBoon.com is owned and run by the Danish company Ventus Publishing ApS. The website claims that it is the fastest growing publishing house in Europe, 2 million of their books are downloaded a year, and a maximum of four advertisers will be in any single ebook ('Information for advertisers'). They also offer free travel guides.

Flat World Knowledge.
Flat World Knowledge is a publisher founded by Eric Frank and Jeff Shelstad, which commissions, edits, and peer reviews textbooks to be given away free on the web. Students can order relatively inexpensive paper copies in color or black-and-white (black-and-white softcovers for under $30) ('Our Story'); and the site also sells a number of other formats like audio and Kindle, and supplementary study guides, flashcards, and services. Additionally, faculty using Flat World's textbooks for their courses can "edit, delete, and remix textbooks so that the books precisely match the teacher's approach to a course" (Anderson 2008, 1). This is facilitated by Flat World's use of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licenses on all of their textbooks. Students can also take advantage of the "Open Textbook" model to creative custom books from various chapters, editing books down to the sentence level in coming iterations of Flat World's website ('Our Story'). As of the publication of Anderson's 2008 article, Flat World Knowledge was actively courting known textbook authors to build credibility and "already [had] 17 books under contract and [hoped] to have that number up to 22 or 25 by the end of the year" (Anderson, 1). Flat World pays textbook authors a 20% royalty, compared to traditional industry standard of 15% on net sales (ibid., 1). Furthermore, authors retain royalty rights on any remixed versions of their content that are sold (ibid., 2). Flat World is also planning a series of college textbooks done as graphic novels (ibid., 2).

Freeload Press and Textbook Media
Freeload Press, Inc. is a publisher and distributor of college textbooks--Textbook Media, Inc. is its sales and distribution arm. They describe their sales model as '"freemium" pricing (free + premium)', whereby they initially offer all of their textbooks for free through a Flash interface (TMReader) supported by advertising called "The Sponsored Book". ('How It Works'). Advertisements are built into certain transitions between website pages (e.g. when opening a free Textbook for the first time), similar to many of the ad-supported video services online that force users to watch an advertisement before loading the desired content; ads are also displayed on otherwise blank pages of the textbooks opposite the desired content. Ad-free versions of the online book, a PDF download, or bound copies can be purchased through a graduating cost structure; supplementary study materials are also available in a similar fashion (though usually with fewer purchasing options compared to the textbooks). Individual pages of the book can be printed through the interface but are only available as one JPG file at a time (same for the ad-free version of the online textbook; the PDF upgrade is recommended for ease of printing). The materials are copyrighted by their authors, and the use of all content is strictly controlled by the Textbook Media's user license, available at http://www.textbookmedia.com/Uploads/LicenseAgreement.pdf. As of May 1, 2009, Textbook Media had 30 books available through its website, and was actively seeking new authors and publishers other than Freeload Press, Inc. to use the Textbook Media distribution platform. Their ad-supported book model has been patented (Doran et al.). User statistics for Textbook Media's website can be seen at http://www.quantcast.com/textbookmedia.com.

Pharmpedia
Pharmpedia is a commons-based peer production wiki attempting to assemble a set of free-content, open-source educational resources for pharmacists, including the Pharmpedia pharmaceuticals encyclopedia, Pharmpediabooks, and Pharmpediaversity. The website was founded by "Raja Vege [..] and a few enthusiastic pharmacists in Canada, USA and India" ('Pharmpedia:About' 2005). All content appears to be under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license, although the Pharmpediabooks page says "the site's content is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License". It is unclear whether the Pharmpediabooks are meant to be under the GNU FDL, versus the CC licenses used on the rest of the site. The main page of Pharmpedia features seven Pharmediabooks, "free pharmaceutical science [related] textbooks with supporting book-based texts, [...] being written collaboratively", each one appears to be attached to a primary, expert author ('Pharmpediabooks' 2005). The wiki is still active according to edits made on April 1, 2009 logged in the site's recent changes activity; however, the single Pharmpediaversity course Stability of Drugs does not seem to have been updated since 2006. Each webpage has Google AdWords advertisements displayed on the left-hand side. Raja Vege can be contacted at Pharmpedia[at]gmail[dot]com.

Established Publishers

iChapters
Cengage Learning's discount online store for more than 15,000 printed textbooks, eTextbooks, individual eChapters, study help tools, including online homework solutions like CengageNow, OWL, Aplia, Personal Trainer etc. [...,] audio study tools sold as a complete audio book or individual eChapters and select video study tool products" ('FAQs'). All materials fall under traditional copyright. Downloadable materials are PDFs secured with DRM software from Oracle's SealedMedia and require a proprietary special "unsealer" plug-in for Adobe Acrobat to read the electronic content (ibid.).

HarperStudio
HarperStudio, a new imprint of HarperCollins, is not an educational materials provider; however they are exploring alternative publishing, innovating on both the input and output side of publishing. They are offering a 50/50 split royalties scheme with authors, physical books bundled with free audiobook and ebook versions, and iTunes-like gift cards for ebooks at brick-and-mortar retail bookstores (Miller 2009). Their involvement of reader participating in discussing the trajectory of the new imprint on their blog has generated an extensive dialogue around 'Why E-Books Cost Money to Publish'.

SafariU
"SafariU is a new custom publishing service offered by O'Reilly Media, Inc. and The Pearson Technology Group. An alternative to expensive print textbooks or print-on-demand services, this innovative Web-based education portal allows academic instructors and corporate trainers to create custom print books, build online syllabi, and share learning objects for Computer Science and Information Technology courses. Educators can easily compile and publish just the information they choose to teachâin print and onlineâand save students a good bit of money over the cost of primary and supplementary texts." Texts will be available "from publishers such as O'Reilly, Addison-Wesley, Peachpit Press, New Riders, Prentice-Hall, Sams, Que, Alpha Press, Adobe Press, Cisco Press and Sun Microsystems [...,] [p]lus more than 5,000 articles from O‘Reilly’s online publications." (Mainland and Brookshier)