Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA), A Memo to Law School Casebook Authors:

Change is coming. The major law school casebook publishers are working on game changers like eBooks and textbook rentals, while trying to do so unilaterally within the confines of standard form contracts designed for the 19th Century.

Textbook pricing is out of whack. Our students are paying outrageous prices. I am willing to consider how we can fairly take steps to reduce that financial impact, but not at the expense of gutting my royalty income.

Consider: Currently, a hugh slice of the price of a casebook goes to the local bookstore. But eBooks and textbook rentals marketed directly by the publisher could cut the local college bookstore out of the loop. So how does the share that used to go to the bookstore get divided between publishers and authors? Amazon pays ebook authors 70% royalties on "on sales of all electronic books priced between $2.99 and $9.99." Somehow I doubt that West or Foundation plan on being that generous.

Textbook rentals contemplate that the renting student pays a license fee and then has the option to return the book at the end of the semester or to buy it. If returned to the publisher, do authors get royalties on second or third rentals? If so, there's the potential for authors to do better than they do today, since we get no royalties on used book sales. But that assumes the rental prices are set intelligently and the royalty rates are set fairly.