Niche E-Commerce in Textbooks: ClassBook CEO Tony Pfister (Part 6)

Sramana: If a student buys a physical book, you ship it from the warehouse. However, what happens on the back end, if the school has implemented iPads and students need to get books that are readable on iPads, How are you procuring digital books for an iPad format given that Apple normally sells them through their store?

Tony Pfister: A lot of people see the industry that way. However, we see it much different from that. If you use an iPad, you can read other books than iBooks. The App Store purchase cycle has required Apple to get their piece of every purchase. Because of that, a lot of publishers are now moving their books outside of the App Store. You need an app that can read the book, but you do not need to purchase the book itself from the App Store anymore.

We do not have any schools that are using the Kindle Fire. Even though most of our schools are going toward iPads, they do not necessarily use iBooks or iTextBooks. Apple does not have all of the digital books available; in fact, Amazon has more available than Apple does. Inkling and others have more digital text books than Apple does. Apple can account for only a small amount of purchasing. However, the iPad allows users to manage multiple readers from their tablet. We streamline the entire purchasing process through our app regardless of where the content is kept. When a student boots up an iPad, the books are linked through us to their account.

Sramana: You need to have access to a lot of different reader apps then, right?

Tony Pfister: Yes, but that is a minor issue. Our app manages multiple readers and their content. Our model is to create a streamlined distribution process. In independent schools, the teachers have a lot of control over their classrooms. They drive the entire experience. We have seen teachers use their e-books to drive that experience. Each teacher can choose the reader of his or her choice. We don’t need to standardize the reader used for an entire school.

Sramana: A student could end up with multiple readers because teachers want them to have different readers? That sounds like a terrible user experience.

Tony Pfister: That is the opinion of industry. Teachers really want to control the environment for their students.

Sramana: If schools go that route, then you have to align yourself with that strategy.

Tony Pfister: Yes. We have to cater to whatever the school policies are. We really have to cater to each teacher. It is all about the effective teaching environment. Teachers will be the most effective when they are teaching from platforms that they are the most comfortable with. If you force teachers to teach with environments they feel are inferior, then they will not provide as much opportunity as they would if they were teaching from a different platform. I don’t think that having multiple readers is any different from having multiple publishers used at a school.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Niche E-Commerce in Textbooks: ClassBook CEO Tony Pfister
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