By Cheryl Madsen

The National Association of College Stores predicts that the average college student spends about $850 to $942 per year on textbooks and supplies. Not only do students have to shell out the cash, but they have to wait in lines, worry about books being sold out, and purchasing the wrong editions.

Imagine if students could stay in the comfort of their apartments, lie on the beach, or prepare for take-off on their way back from Christmas break while purchasing their books.

Well, they may soon be able to. The near future of college textbook reading may become paperless and wireless.

Today's leader in the field of wireless books, Amazon.com, has created the Kindle. The Amazon Kindle Team describes this product as "a convenient, portable reading device with the ability to wirelessly download books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers."

Weighing in at 10.3 ounces, the Amazon Kindle can hold over 200 books and is constantly connected to a wireless connection, allowing for 60 second of downloading of any of the 90,000 books available through Amazon's library.

"This is the future of book reading," said Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and Liar's Poker about the Kindle on Amazon's Web page.It will be everywhere," With no publication fees and a numberless supply, electronic books are cheaper than their paper-bound cousins.

However, with the kinks and problems every new piece of technology encounters, the Kindle isn't perfect, and neither is the price.

At $399, the Kindle roughly equals the cost of new textbooks for a 12-credit hour semester.

Initially, products such as the Kindle may not be seen as cost savers. Electronic books cost about a third of the price of New York Times bestsellers. These costs coupled with the $399 purchase price may seem steep, but ultimately would result in significant savings.

If electronic textbook prices mirror those of New York Times bestsellers, which are roughly one-third of the paperback price, then first-semester college students purchasing their books and wireless reading device would feel the bite.

Dustin Derrick, a senior from American Fork majoring in mechanical engineering, predicts that he spends about $450 per semester on textbooks. He says that he would happily break out of the bookstore lines and purchase textbooks through new high-tech sources if he could be guaranteed all of his books were available through that source.

While the Kindle and other portable reading devices such as the Sony Reader are pricey, Derrick suggests that after the first semester of use, the discounted price of books would make up for the initial purchase of the reading device.

Worried about the consequences that would occur if students were to rely solely on alternative sources to purchase their textbooks, Derrick said, "Eventually the lack of textbook sales could lead to increases [of price] in other places."

According to the National Association of College stores, approximately 13.3 percent of textbook sales are returned to the institution. Without this source of income to the schools, it would have to be made up elsewhere.

Thayne Holyoak, a senior from Provo majoring in accounting, said he spent $900 on textbooks last semester alone. However, he noted that his average semester totals in at about $400.

Last semester, Holyoak used ichapters.com, to purchase some supplemental reading for one of his classes. Using ichapters, Holyoak was able to quickly download the reading from the Internet at a cheaper price than purchasing the hardcopy would have been. He was satisfied with the service and notes that many of the textbooks he needs for his classes are available to purchase in a pdf format online.

The BYU bookstore's Web site has a link to three e-textbook Web sites offering students the "optional alternative to traditional printed textbooks."

While the average e-textbook is approximately 40 percent off the new textbook price, the bookstore warns students of several disadvantages of these alternative books.

Disadvantages include: limited to no refunds, no sell-back, subscription basis of 180 to365 days, and limitations on printing and copying materials.

A study conducted by the Government Accountability Office found that over the past two decades, textbook prices have risen at twice the rate of annual inflation. During this same time period, the average retail gross profit margin of college stores from textbook sales has consistently remained at about 26.4 percent, according to the National Association of College Stores.

Paperless, downloadable books are cheaper to the consumer simply because there are little to no publishing costs, freight expenses or store operations. Cutting out the middle man always saves the consumer money, and in this case, time.

Until the idea of paperless textbooks becomes a more mainstream concept, students can expect to continue paying higher prices, waiting in lines, filling out order forms for sold-out books, and dreaming of the day when they can download all of their textbooks a few minutes before classes start.

Copyright Brigham Young University 13 Feb 2008