In the latest salvo in the e-textbook wars, Chegg, one of the pioneers in print textbook rental, is going digital, by offering device agnostic e-textbooks for purchase and 180-day rental. Their news follows recent announcements by Inkling, Kno, and Barnes & Noble.
As part of its digital transition, Chegg has redesigned its Chegg.com Web site with a separate tab for e-textbooks. Chegg’s e-textbooks also include a “read while you wait” tool, so that students can access their textbooks online while they wait for a hardcopy textbook to arrive. One potential drawback is that the books use streaming files that aren’t downloaded. So an Internet connection is required to read Chegg’s e-textbooks. In some instances, e-rental is actually more expensive than print book rental.
To start, Chegg has signed with a number of major textbook providers for its e-editions, including Cengage, Elsevier, MacMillan, McGraw-Hill, and Wiley, among others. It plans to have 40,000 digital books by the end of the year and millions of print and digital books combined.
“Our goal,” says president and CEO Dan Rosensweig, “is to connect students to the resources and tools they need to help make them more successful throughout their academic life. With the growing adoption of e-readers and tablets, Chegg is fulfilling its promise to students by providing them with the content they need in the formats they want.”
