Publishers 'missing out' on school e-book sales

Publishers are "missing out" on e-book sales to schools because of the lack of a business model and a platform where schools can buy e-books for lending, said Andrea Carr, m.d. of educational and digital publisher Rising Stars.

While schools are now embracing e-books, particularly over the past 18 months, Carr said: "The challenge for publishers is that schools want to be able to read e-books at multiple addresses and to have flexibility with their licences."

She added: "Schools want to buy the myriad trade e-books for their libraries and they are buying multiple Kindles for children to use in schools, but the model of one e-book per e-reader doesn’t work for them."  Rising Stars is working with a number of publishers to sell their e-books into schools with multiple licences.

Digital developments in primary schools have also redrawn classroom teaching with the days of textbooks "pretty much gone", said Carr. Rising Stars is to develop a range of digital resources combined with print, posters and cards to support the new English, Maths and Science curricula and plans to expand its publishing team later this year. The company is also about to launch three new reading series aimed at struggling readers.

Next year, Rising Stars will publish 10 "significant new programmes" across fiction and non-fiction, and will extend its Dockside phonics scheme for older struggling readers aged 10 years plus. The scheme launched this year and is already being used by 650 schools.