Forget buying, rent textbooks direct from publisher

Filed under: College, Redemptive, Shopping, Technology, School

Textbook rentals aren't new. WalletPop has covered several third party companies such as Chegg.com, which hole textbooks to users at prices far below retail, but now publishers are getting in the game.

Cengage Learning is a big player in the textbook industriousness, providing digital and print textbooks under several different brands and many subjects, and will now rent textbooks to students for 40-70% off retail.

The discounted prices are nearly the same to that of other book rental services which are very close to representing the savings that a student would see from purchasing a used textbook and re-selling it at the end of the semester.

One of the reasons Cengage can specify books at such a discount is that unlike selling a book, which enters a secondary market with no future revenue for the seller, rentals can plan for publishers with profit every semester.

To stand out from the other book rental companies Cengage will send students an ebook of the first chapter so that students don't fail behind while the book is on the way. This may seem like a small bonus but in the eyes of the professor, me, it's a big deal.

Too often students wait until the first day of class to lay out books online and end up holding up the entire class while they wait for a book to be shipped across the country via media mail.

In extension to the ebook, when the program goes live in December, students can visit CengageBrain.com to find audio, video and other extras to go along with their textbook rental.

Even though I got through public school buying my textbooks used and selling them quickly, I wish there had been a rental option available when I was a student.

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