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 pric

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.