New idea to cut textbook costs — sell ads

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A Canadian subsidiary of McGraw-Hill briefly rolled out an ad-based model, but dropped the plan last year. Susan Badger, CEO of Thomson Higher Education, said her company tested the idea with focus groups, in biology, but the professors were adamantly opposed.

Tom Doran, Freeload’s CEO, says McGraw-Hill’s experiment failed because it didn’t use the ad revenue to reduce prices enough to get students’ attention. As for faculty, Doran says he realizes not everyone will go for it.

Current customers “are primarily business instructors, so they understand there’s a quid pro quo here,” Doran said. “When we walk over to the social sciences and humanities, I expect there will be more push back.”

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As to objections that textbooks shouldn’t have ads, Doran notes ads already appear in academic journals. He says Freeload’s ads won’t be distracting; they will be placed only at natural breaks in the material, and won’t push products like alcohol or tobacco. Schools with other concerns could customize their standards; for instance Brigham Young University, founded by Mormons, could nix ads for caffeine products.

Will they succeed?
Ultimately, whether Freeload changes the industry or fades away will likely depend on its ability to attract popular textbook authors. Fordham University professors Frank Werner and James Stoner had each written several finance textbooks for traditional publishers, but after their latest was dropped by one company following a merger, they took it to Freeload.

“I was pretty disgusted with the basic textbook model,” Werner said. Textbook authors, he says, often waste time making pointless revisions just so publishers can justify putting out new editions.

“That didn’t seem like an ethical thing to do and it seemed like a hell of a waste of time,” he said, adding there’s no need to do that with Freeload.

The professors assigned the Freeload book to their class last year and said it was a hit. The students include “lots of working-class kids trying to get through college,” Werner said. “To ask them to go to the bookstore and spend $150 is pretty wasteful.”

Shannon Langston, a rising sophomore at Georgia Tech taking classes this summer while also juggling two jobs, said she often won’t buy textbooks unless she hears from other students that it’s absolutely essential.

But when her accounting professor assigned a Freeload book, she was glad not to have to make that call — and worry that she wouldn’t be able to sell back a new book because the publisher had already rushed out a new edition.

“I definitely don’t mind ads,” she said, “if it helps with the price.”

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