Amazon Lets Students Rent Textbooks
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Those of you who have followed the Kindle from the very first day it was launched know that Amazon was always interested in hitting it big with students. Kindle DX was expected to be the device that would allow Amazon to gain major market-share in the academic world. While Kindle DX did not achieve what Amazon had planned for it, the new text-book rental service by Amazon could be a game changer.
Amazon’s new textbook rental service allows students to rent their books for as long as they need them. No need to invest in a highly expensive book if it is only needed for a few months. The rented titles can be viewed on any device that runs Kindle software. The notes and highlights taken on rented books are stored in the cloud and available the very next time the same book is rented.
Credit: Amazon
Not all textbooks are available through Amazon’s textbook rental program. It will be interesting to see how this program performs among students. It does give them the opportunity to save money on their textbooks. But research has shown that the current crop of e-readers are not exactly college friendly. You won’t be able to sell these e-textbooks either. So how much the savings will be anyway? Amazon will most likely have to do more to succeed in this market.
