Demand is artificially inelastic as students are indentured to cost servitude at the whim of college professors who blithely assign titles a student must own if she hopes to do well in a given course . Flat World Knowledge offers free access to digital textbooks online . The company charges $ 20 for downloadable PDF - format books . Interest in the company is growing ; the company will be at 400 colleges this year . Still , the digital textbook business remains in its infancy , author wise .
Flat World Knowledge offers free access to digital textbooks online . The company charges $ 20 for downloadable PDF - format books . Interest in the company is growing ; the company will be at 400 colleges this year . Still , the digital textbook business remains in its infancy , author wise .