e-books or "eek"-books?

[Mark Stellmack]

When textbook publishers sell paper copies of textbooks, those books are typically resold on the used market after each semester.  As a result, the publisher only profits from the initial sale of the textbook.  Sales are high when the textbook is initially published but then drop off quickly thereafter.

Textbook publishers push electronic versions of their textbooks because they are more profitable in the long run.  Although the e-book versions are typically cheaper than the paper versions, students often cannot resell their e-books after using them (and sometimes their access to them is cut off), so a new group of students has to purchase e-books each semester.  Thus, sales of e-books continue at a more steady pace over time than sales of paper copies.

How do students feel about e-books?  More specifically, what would the price of an e-book have to be for students to choose it over the paper version?  I recently posed the following question to a group of undergraduate students:

"Suppose the paper version of our textbook costs $100 new.  What would the price of the e-book version have to be ($0 or greater) in order for you to choose it over the paper copy?  Assume that you would not have access to the e-book after the semester and you could not sell it after the semester.  Give the highest price that you would pay for the e-book over the paper version.  Respond 'never' if you would not opt for the e-book at any price."

110 students responded.  The table below shows the price named (as a range), the number of students who named a price in that range, the corresponding percentage of students, and the cumulative percentage (from the highest price range):

               #       %     cum %

never     25     23    100

  0-  5       4       3     77

10-15     10       9     74

20-25     23     21     65

30-35     11     10     44

40-45     14     13     34

50-55     14     13     21

60-65       5       4       8

70-75       2       2       4

80-85       2       2       2

99-100     3       2       2

Looking at the cumulative percentage column, the results show that if the e-book costs no more than 50% of the paper version, 21% of students would opt for the e-book.  The e-book can cost no more than 20% of the paper version for the percentage of students choosing the e-book to exceed 50% (the actual value being 65%).  And 23% of students reported that they would never choose the e-book over the paper version.

This does not explicitly take into consideration the fact that in most cases students can purchase used copies of the textbook for much less than a new paper copy, although students probably had that fact in mind when responding.  Several students noted that they would only buy the e-book if the price of the e-book was less than their net cost of buying and reselling a paper copy.

Currently (11/19/2015) at Amazon.com, the textbook for our research methods course (Methods in Behavioral Research, Cozby and Bates, 12th edition) costs $110 new with an e-book rental price of $45.  The least expensive used paper copy is priced at $93.

Given those numbers, it seems that about 35% of the class should have e-books.  However, I also asked the students the following question (with the number and percentage of students choosing each option shown):

Which of the following is true for you?:
a.  I bought a new hard copy of the textbook.  (32, 29%)
b.  I bought or acquired a used hard copy of the textbook.  (63, 57%)
c.  I am renting an e-book.  (1, 1%)
d.  I do not have a copy of the textbook.  (14, 13%)

Although, again, the responses to the first question suggest that about 35% of students should have e-books, only 1 student (1%) reported having an e-book.

When I subsequently presented these data to the students, many of them said that they would use an e-book if they were aware of the option, but the University Bookstore did not list such an option.  I have arranged for the bookstore to provide an e-book option in the upcoming semester.  However, two factors probably will result in different usage of e-books than the survey data might predict: 

(1) The price for the e-book will be around $70.  Based on the survey data and this price, only 4% of students are likely to choose the e-book.

(2) The e-book that will be offered is not a rental, but rather students are supposed to have continued access to the e-book after the semester is over.  It is not clear how this factor might affect e-book usage.

I will report on the actual e-book usage next semester, when the option will be offered to the students through the bookstore.