This seems like an interesting attempt on O'Reilly's part to justify an electronic price greater than the print price (as of today at Amazon). I will fully acknowledge that the potential utility of an electronic edition of this style of book is superior to that of the dead-tree version. But I can't really accept the price.
I see that Campbell's Biology is still outrageously expensive as well. Can I even resell my Inkling books? If the answer is "no" then students should just buy the used dead-tree version of texts on amazon and resell them. Especially Campbell.
Also, I want to middle-click the tiles to open the book in a new page. Shame on you Inkling for breaking that.
I wouldn't read into the O'Reilly prices too much. They must balance a lot of pre-existing agreements with other distribution channels, and as you probably know, Amazon often sells print titles at a loss.
Campbell is a similar situation, but it's available by the chapter for $4, and that's how most students are buying it -- getting just the pieces their profs assign.
As to the middle-click / option-click problem, we're aware, and we consider it a bug. We'll fix it. We are ashamed!
I probably came across a little too harsh. I think Inkling is awesome, I'm just still grumpy at publishers.
In the case of Campbell the a la carte Inkling prices are such that a student can get 60% of the book at the point they reach the full price of the book. I know at many universities Campbell is the primary text used for first year biology students so going through 60-80% is not unheard of. At that consumption rate I would be better off buying the book used from Amazon, using it, and then reselling it at a loss of $20-$30. If a student doesn't want to deal with reselling his or her book they can even rent Campbell for ~$70. As it's a, first year, general biology book keeping it for reference doesn't make a huge amount of sense for non-pre-med biology students.
I really don't blame Inkling for this, I just think that Campbell would be a reasonable text at a quarter to half the current price (with individual chapters similarly reduced) which would compete nicely and directly with the rental text market.
All that said, per-chapter certainly benefits students who tend to not buy the texts, but would like access to particular chapters.
Additionally, buying an Inkling text with half a dozen other students and sharing becomes an enticing proposition (that probably terrifies publishers and probably violates the EULA and TOS).
Anyway, I'm excited about Inkling, and hope that authors and publishers fully embrace it and similar platforms. I'm not excited about future students still being gouged for a medium that is dirt cheap to reproduce.
I agree with you, higher prices are disappointing. However, given the example you used of Campbell's Biology, most of the time students never read a textbook in its entirety. In that case, Inkling actually lets you buy the specific chapters you need. I'd bet for most students, that model will be cheaper than buying used textbooks (of course, I don't have any hard numbers)… Plus you get all the 'bonus features' of an Inkling book.
O'Reilly seems pretty open to delivering their books in a number of ways at a number of price points. For example, several of the books on that page can be had as ePub based Android apps for $4.99 each [1]. Also, they're all almost certainly available via Safari subscription.
I see that Campbell's Biology is still outrageously expensive as well. Can I even resell my Inkling books? If the answer is "no" then students should just buy the used dead-tree version of texts on amazon and resell them. Especially Campbell.
Also, I want to middle-click the tiles to open the book in a new page. Shame on you Inkling for breaking that.