Barnes & Noble College Moves into Textbook Rental Market

techcrunch.com

2 pointscwan2 comments

How will textbook publishers react to this?

Will they: 1) Publish new editions more frequently? 2) License the books to rental companies instead of selling them (maybe they already do this, I don't know)? 3) Require a cut from each rental?

I think they should go after 3) if this gains traction. They already do 1) BUT it requires considerable amount of effort from their side and the authors are not always interested. However, getting a cut from each rental would be quite lucrative and won't require them to keep churning new editions out.

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