It is perhaps no small irony that in the age of free digital material, many students still want a book of their own ”“ particularly when it comes to affordable textbooks.
That”™s where Flat World Knowledge ”“ a company clearly comfortable with irony ”“ comes in. Though the name evokes a kind of limited thinking, the company takes an innovative approach to textbook publishing.
“We publish textbooks the way a Prentice Hall might,” says Eric Frank, president and co-founder (with CEO Jeff Shelstad). “But once a book is ready, we flip the model on its head.”
He is speaking from the companyӪs new 6,000-square-foot digs in IrvingtonӪs Bridge Street Properties, where the pale green and white d̩cor does not disguise the glass conservatory that the complex once was. Two weeks before, Flat World lay across the Hudson River in Nyack. The Irvington move was occasioned by the three-year-old companyӪs growing pains.
“We”™re going to be adding more jobs,” Frank says of Flat World, which has 33 employees. “We wanted access to the city but also a small-town feel. And we needed to be on a train line.”
Hence the Irvington office, which has a Left Coast feel. On a Casual Friday, the boyish Frank is downright beach-y, sporting sandals. His bike is parked in a corner, waiting to take him home later.
Such breeziness belies the seriousness of Flat World”™s enterprise ”“ to provide teachers and students alike with flexible, affordable textbooks. Under a Creative Commons operating license, faculty members can freely download material and customize it to their courses. Students can access textbooks online for free. Or they can purchase material under a number of different options: $60 for a book with color illustrations; $30 for the black-and-white version; $29.95 for an audio edition; $25 for a hand-held reader; and $24.95 for a PDF download, with other options for chapters and study guides.
“Sixty percent buy something,” Frank says. “Almost all of those buy the $30 black-and-white book.”
With recent talk about schoolbooks reflecting a conservative strain in American culture, Frank is not worried about teachers adding their own idiosyncratic opinions to a text”™s body. (Each teacher sees only the modifications he or she has made to the text.)
“Our view is that higher education is about academic freedom,” Frank says.
As for the future of actual publishing, well, he”™s not worried about that either.
“I think books will still be around,” he says. “How they”™re packaged will change.”
By the Numbers
· On average, students at four-year colleges spend $1,122 a year on textbooks.
· Seventy-two percent of the tuition and fees at two-year colleges go to textbooks and other materials.
· Flat World Knowledge has created 20 texts on subjects ranging from psychology to economics, with 40 in the pipeline.
· Approximately 60,000 students in some 600 colleges and universities ”“ including Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, SUNY New Paltz and Rockland Community College in Suffern ”“ have used Flat World textbooks.
· Students using a Flat World Knowledge textbook routinely save more than 80 percent of the cost of a traditional textbook.
Sources: Flat World Knowledge, the College Board, U.S. Government Accountability Office.
