From the 32nd Floor: E-books can reach college students

In another great example of what the Internet can do, publishers and aspiring writers are using e-books to reach a larger audience. However, they're missing the group with the most sales potential - college students.

Introduced by publishers a few years ago, e-books struggled to find a market. RCA and other companies produced E-readers, electronic devices that customers used to make e-books portable. It wasn't until PDAs became popular that e-books found an audience.

E-books had a big push earlier this year, thanks to Stephen King. King has written over 40 books, all worldwide best sellers. In March, King released "Riding the Bullet" exclusively as an e-book. The book sold more than half a million copies for just $2.50 a copy. King, trying to test the e-book market further, is planning on selling installments of another original, "The Plant," through his official Web site for just $1.

But e-books are going to need more than a few great works from King to become widely accepted. The current audience is relatively small, but maybe that's because it's hitting the wrong market. Maybe the biggest market for e-books is college students. E-textbooks carry an enormous advantage for students.

First, e-books are up to 60 percent less expensive than paper copies. Notice I said "up to 60 percent." Usually, it's much less than that, but I'm not picky. Money is money.

Second, e-books are great for referencing. There's no flipping through trying to find the phrase or definition needed for page 15 of your 30-page report. The computer can search for words and phrases with a click of the mouse, and often times e-books are easily divided and formatted for quicker reading of chapters.

Third, e-books are portable. After downloading a book to a desktop computer, e-books can be copied into a handheld, like my trusty Handspring.

But like general reading, I find it hard to see e-textbooks becoming popular. E-textbooks are hard to find, and not for a lack of a willing market. Simply put, e-textbooks take money away from publishers and bookstores. Publishers mark up textbooks more than general reading books, and e-books take away that revenue. Bookstores, of course, lose not only the valuable market of first sales, but more importantly, money is lost by reselling paper books.

There is one major drawback to downloading books: no refunds. You download it, you bought it. But that's understandable considering copyright laws, and e-books are inexpensive.

E-textbooks have a perfect market: money conscious, time-valuing students who have to buy books. Maybe that's why we won't see technology extend to this: we have to buy books.