Here is a snippet from an article from The Xplanation written by Bob Reynolds of Xplana. It is the first of a series.
While the textbook publishing industry grew impressively from the 60s through the 90s, its overall position in the marketplace remained precarious. After all, not only do textbook publishers function as expert curators of learning content, they do so in a world full of experts who are simultaneously creating their own expert content. In other words, the fundamental commodity offered by textbook publishers is convenience. Historically, the educational market gave them exclusive license to curate our teaching content so that teachers could continue teaching and researchers could focus elsewhere.
The advent of the Web, as well as digital textbooks, has suddenly made the core service offered by textbook publishers less valuable. While most were content with the convenience publishers offered, and to pass along the costs of that convenience to students for decades, the market is now making dramatic shifts. Driven by concerns over education costs and growing more open to new alternatives for the curation of digital learning content, the general education market is seeing a fragmentation in the learning materials business.
Absent strategic change, major textbook publishers will see their position diminish significantly over the coming decade. In order to prevent such losses, textbook publishers will need to make important strategic changes.
