Changes afoot in textbook publishing

Customization and one-off printing are coming to textbooks, but right now the field is somewhat in chaos. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

McGraw-Hill Higher Education plans to announce its revamped custom-publishing system, called Create, with an emphasis on electronic versions of mix-and-match books. Macmillan Publishers this year announced a similar custom-textbook platform, called DynamicBooks. And upstart Flat World Knowledge touts the customization features of its textbooks, which it gives away online, charging only for printed copies and study guides. Other publishers have long offered custom-textbook services in print as well, though they have always represented just a sliver of sales.

Here's how it works:

The new Create system lets professors go to a Web site and select sections of 4,000 McGraw-Hill books, thousands of articles and case studies, or any document that the professors themselves upload. A price tag displays how much the resulting book will cost. Professors can then choose whether to make the book available to students as a printed book or an e-book. In a demonstration for The Chronicle this week, a book on health care cost about $6 as an e-book but jumped to $16.96 as printed book.

And there's a problem.

The system does not include material from other textbook publishers. That is typical of custom systems but makes it impossible for professors to blend a chapter from one publisher with a competitor's. When Macmillan announced its system, in February, it said it hoped that other publishers would join in its effort. But Mr. Stanford said McGraw-Hill had no intention of doing that, and he doesn't expect other publishers to want to join his company's project, either.

He said that as much as his company would love to become the iTunes store of e-textbooks, he didn't expect that to happen. "If any of us could be the distributor," he added, "we would."

I think it's just a matter of time. And I think that the first to recognize the ultimate customer -- the student -- will win. Right now college textbook publishing is a major revenue stream flowing from dwindling student resources.