(By Peter Beisser, BookBusiness, August 15, 2008)
Nyack, N.Y.-based Flat World Knowledge, which launched this month, publishes free and open college textbooks online, with the option to purchase alternate formats of its content, including print and audio, and other study aids. While offering university-level course material gratis on the Web is not a newfangled idea in the higher-education realm, there are big differences from previous efforts—there’s no advertising within the text pages, nor is there a trial period with hidden fees. There isn’t even any registration required for users.
Flat World Knowledge is a publishing company, not an aggregator of other publishers’ titles, says Eric Frank, co-founder and chief marketing officer. “[Students and faculty] have been looking for a solution [to expensive textbooks],” Frank says. “They’re excited to see something viable.”
Frank has 11 years of experience in higher-education publishing, holding positions in sales, editorial and marketing at Thomson (now Cengage Learning) and Prentice Hall. His partner, Co-founder and CEO Jeff Shelstad, has a 20-year career in higher-ed publishing and most recently served as editorial director at Prentice Hall Business Publishing.
Frank recently spoke with Book Business Extra about his and Shelstad’s new venture.
Book Business Extra: What are the problems with traditional forms of textbook publishing?
Eric Frank: … I definitely don’t think there’s greed or malice in this market. I think there’s a business that has had its distribution and model disrupted by a combination of rising prices—beyond what students [are] content to pay—coupled with the distribution of … lower-priced alternatives [via the Internet]. … Their investment is going down. They’re trying to create a high-quality product; they’re trying to preserve revenue. It’s very difficult for them to turn the corner and say, “We have to do something new rather than make short-term fixes,” [such as] raise prices on books … and [publish] new editions. … I understand why you turn to those things. The bigger question is, what models … will publishers turn to to invest and get a fair return?
Extra: How do you turn an idea like Flat World Knowledge into a viable business?
Frank: … An idea, if executed well, will lead to customer satisfaction, for students and for authors. Execution is everything. We started with three fundamental premises. We need to get great authors to write textbooks. There’s a difference between good and great. We have to convince a faculty member to change to a Flat World book from their current textbook, not out of a utopian idea, but because there’s value. … Then, we ultimately have to get a student who’s in that faculty member’s class … to open their wallet to buy the textbook [in print] that is available online for free. We definitely utilized connections to authors that we have had over the years to get conversations going. We’ve had an increase in people reaching out to us. They said, “We’ve been dissatisfied with the model. What you guys are doing seems to have an economic good and a social good. I’m attracted to that.” We have to sell authors on a new vision of publishing.
Extra: What makes Flat World Knowledge’s approach different?
Frank: I think, at the end of the day, that Jeff and I both believe that we are offering something we really believe in. … There’s no sliver bullet …. There’s nothing really magical about it. It’s really hard to execute on. It requires the ability [to sell] a vision to people in an air of uncertainty. But if you believe in your ability to sell, you can convince people to take a risk with you …. Jeff and I came at this with a high level of confidence [in ours] careers [in textbook publishing] … that we can apply our talents in a good way.
Extra: What potential challenges do you face by offering open textbooks?
Frank: … Part of us being open is to have openly licensed content to enable a faculty member to adopt our book for their class and to modify our book for it. It’s not a wiki-style model. We feel this takes into consideration that this is material that is being taught. … We have a vision that great authors … write a book from the beginning to end. We tell the professors that they can modify this for [their] own course to fit [into their] course better.
Extra: What other challenges do you expect to face?
Frank: … We figure there are some slackers who won’t pay for anything. We figure there are [also] the A-types—complete overachievers—who say, “I’m going to buy everything I need to and everything in between.” As we started talking to lots of students in-depth about whether we were right or wrong, we were validated that students—who ran a wide range—said that [they] would pay something for convenience. We did a study using Facebook. We went to 2,000 students to get them to look at this model and asked them, “What would you buy?” It absolutely validated … what we believe. Students will buy and will buy in sufficient dollars for us to be profitable. If they like the idea of a print book, and a majority still do, we can make a black-and-white available for $50 or $60, shipped directly to them. If they want an audiobook, we’ll give them an audiobook. … At the end of the day, if the price is right, they’ll buy. We sell a whole range of digital study aids, podcasts and study guides. We charge for those things. … We’re going to put as much care and thought as we would at McGraw Hill, but we’ll let the model do some heavy lifting.
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