Every semester, hundreds of students in The Bahamas, and hundreds of thousands worldwide are left with Textbooks that they no longer need, and often have difficulty selling. To their rescue Amazon has launched a service that allows them to rent Textbooks for a fraction of the purchase price, keep them for as long as they need, read them everywhere, and even keep their personal annotations.
“Students tell us that they enjoy the low prices we offer on new and used print textbooks. Now we’re excited to offer students an option to rent Kindle textbooks and only pay for the time they need–with savings up to 80% off the print list price on a 30-day rental,” said Dave Limp, vice president, Amazon Kindle.
With the fall school semester approaching, I expect thousands of students who were trying to justify the cost of an iPad or new computer to now have a pretty decent bargaining chip. A student’s life is mobile to say the least, and because the Kindle App is available on a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android device, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry or the actual Kindle, their Textbooks can be everywhere they are. Hopefully they can focus on the text and avoid the distractions of such devices.
Renting a textbook is as simple as downloading the Kindle App, performing a search, and selecting the rental period. “Textbooks can be rented for any length between 30 up to 360 days – you pay only for the time you need and can extend or buy anytime.”
I am excited to see the environmental benefit of printing a few less Textbooks. Now, only if the airlines can stop asking me to completely turn off my device I can get more ‘study’ time in.
