Session Title: Free: Why Authors & Publishers are Giving Away Books
Presenter: John Hilton III, PhD Candidate, Brigham Young University
Time & Date: 2:30 P.M. - 3:15 P.M., Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Location: Rm. C150
Session Description: Many college students and their families are concerned about the high costs of textbooks. Ebooks have been proposed as one potential solution, open-source ebooks have also been explored. A company called Flat World Knowledge produces open-source textbooks in a way that they believe to be financially sustainable. This presentation reports on an initial study of the financial sustainability of the Flat World Knowledge open-source textbook model. This presentation also reports on a separate, but related study in which ten prominent authors were interviewed about open publishing. All of the authors we interviewed were glad they had freely distributed their works. Their motivations for open publishing included the opportunity to increase the exposure and impact of their work and a conviction that open publishing was the right thing to do. None of the authors felt that openly releasing their book(s) had negatively affected book sales.
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Presentation slides are attached. See http://johnhiltoniii.org for additional information or to continue a dialogue.
http://openedconference.org/wp-content/upload/1250118525-Open Ed Open Books for site.ppt
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