Students, lecturers, university administrators, media outlets and publishers are all getting on board with the #textbookrevolution. We’re thrilled to announce that SHAWCO from the University of Cape Town is one of our most recent converts.
SHAWCO is one of the country’s largest student volunteer organisations. They run health and welfare projects across low-income areas in Cape Town – and we’re thrilled to be associated with such a wonderful organisation. SHAWCO have lent their logo to our cause by putting it on the #textbookrevolution website. They’ve also partnered with us to put an impressive splash page on the home page of Vula, UCT’s main student web portal.
We have a growing supporters bar on the #textbookrevolution website and every company, institution or organisation that joins us brings the entire campaign one step closer to making our aim a reality. If you would like to add your logo to the list, click here. Your support can make a huge difference.
Have you signed our online petition yet? If not, do it here. Leave a comment too so that we know what this campaign really means to you.
Two #textbookrevolution supporters get their hands on great T-shirts!
Paperight has officially launched the #textbookrevolution and supporters are flying in thick and fast. We now have #textbookrevolution partner copy shops across 10 universities in South Africa – and this is only the beginning. Publishers, students and lecturers have also been coming on board, joining an initiative that intends to blow apart the existing monopolies that drive textbook prices sky high.
This week the Paperight team took the long drive out to Stellenbosch to chat to students face-to-face and hear their concerns. Sporting #textbookrevolution t-shirts, we hooked them with a batch of limited edition Paperight drinks coasters emblazoned with the tagline “Cheaper Textbooks. More Beer”. Then we got down to business. We asked them to sign a petition calling for publishers to give them a cheap and legal alternative to buy their set works. Students, many of whom were on bursaries, were enthusiastic with the prospect of saving cash for other important expenses. One student we spoke to said that she had a textbook that cost her R1300 and another lamented the fact that she had to buy 8 books for her final year of Law; none of them cost less than R900.
As we walked around town we had students coming up to us as their friends had told them what we’re up to and we heard snatches of enthusiastic conversations about “those textbook revolution guys”. The #textbookrevolution hashtag has propagated across Facebook and Twitter with energetic commentary. It seems a no-brainer that students would love the idea and now we are well on our way to gathering the testimonies, signatures and demand that will help us initiate a significant change on their behalf.
Do you love the #textbookrevolution? Then join us! It’s as easy as doing any of the following:
Share the #textbookrevolution video (see www.textbookrevolution.co.za)
Publish the #textbookrevolution manifesto in your varsity newspaper or speak about the it on your varsity radio.
Ask your lecturers why your textbooks aren’t available on Paperight – they can influence the publishers.
Starting this year, public schools and some private schools in South Africa have fully switched to the CAPS curriculum, with the first batch of CAPS-educated learners matriculating at the end of the 2014 school year.
With all of the changes to the South African national curriculum in the past decade or so, CAPS might seem like just another confusing acronym for parents and teachers to remember, and another annoying policy shift that requires everyone to buy new textbooks and start over. CAPS really isn’t that complicated, though, but it’s important to understand what it’s all about.
CAPS stands for Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements. Simply, it is a revision of the current National Curriculum Statement (NCS), and introduces more streamlined and comprehensive sets of guidelines and assessment criteria for each subject in each grade. The purpose of this is to make teachers’ jobs easier, giving them clear guidance on what to do. It also makes learners’ lives easier, by establishing clearly what it is they are to learn in fine detail and how their work will be assessed.
Overcomplicated terminology is also out the window, making it so much easier for parents, guardians and learners themselves to understand exactly what they’re doing: for example, the old terms “Learning Outcomes” and “Assessment Standards” are done away with, and have been replaced with “Content” and “Skills”. Even better, primary school learners will no longer study “Literacy” and “Numeracy”; they will now do “Language” and “Mathematics” instead.
The upshot of all this – the new terminology, the week-by-week planning for classrooms to follow – is that everyone needs new textbooks that are completely aligned with the new curriculum. Luckily, Paperight has a great selection of CAPS textbooks available at any of our outlets nationwide.
X-kit Achieve!
The X-Kit Achieve! series from Pearson has been developed based on meticulous research and feedback from learners and teachers. These study guides offer exercises which cover understanding, application and problem-solving skills. They also include concise explanations, plenty of practice and sample test and exam papers with answers. Available for Grade 10 and Grade 11 students.
Study & Master Study Guides
Cambridge University Press’s Study & Master series have been specially developed by experienced author teams to meet all the requirements of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). These new and easy-to-use courses not only help learners to master essential content and skills, but also gives them the best possible foundation on which to build their knowledge in each subject. Guides for seven subjects are available through Paperight for Grade 12 students.
Everything Maths
Siyavula’s Everything Maths textbookfor Grade 10 students is not just a Mathematics textbook. It has everything you expect from your regular printed school textbook, but also comes with online video lessons and explanations which help bring concepts to life. Summary presentations at the end of every chapter offer an overview of the content covered, with key points highlighted for easy revision. All the exercises inside the book link to a service where you can get more practice, see the full solution or test your skills level on mobile and PC.
This week we kick off the #textbookrevolution, a movement to end the high cost of textbooks. Here is the #textbookrevolution manifesto in 75 seconds.
The #textbookrevolution manifesto
At South African universities, less than half of students buy textbooks.
They are too often expensive, out of stock, hard to find, and longer than necessary.
This must change.
The culprit? The supply chain: printing + shipping + warehousing + wastage + retail = 70% of the price.
That’s crazy. There is a better way.
Textbooks can be printed on demand in any copy shop quickly and legally.
Legal copy-shop printouts cut textbook prices by up to 40%.
And publishers and authors still get paid the same.
This could save R1000 for every student in South Africa.
That’s a billion rand every year to spend on more important things, like food and housing.
It’s time for a #textbookrevolution.
Lecturers and authors: Insist that publishers put textbooks on Paperight.
Universities: scrap monopolies for campus bookstores.
Students: spread the word.
#textbookrevolution
The thinking behind the #textbookrevolution
There are a million university students in South Africa. Their textbooks are very expensive, because the supply chain for textbooks is bloated: it accounts for 70% of the retail price of most paper textbooks. (I include printing in the supply chain, since a publisher’s primary output is a print-ready PDF: everything after that is the supply chain.)
In theory, ebooks would solve this problem, but ebooks present many challenges of their own, including high setup costs, poor reader software, clumsy DRM, the need to buy with a credit card, and device and data costs. Many students simply prefer paper.
Paperight shortens the supply chain by replacing traditional retail, printing, shipping, warehousing and wastage with a simple copy-shop print-out. This could save most students up to 40% off their textbook bill – that’s thousands of rands every year per student.
Here’s an example using an 800-page crown-format textbook that normally sells for R500. Traditionally:
The retailer, printer, shipping companies, warehousing, and wastage provisions eat up about R350.
The traditional supply chain pays the publisher about R150, which covers all their costs and the author’s royalties.
On Paperight:
The copy shop pays a licence fee of, say, R200. The publisher earns R160 after Paperight’s 20% commission.
The copy shop prints out and ring-binds the book, shrunk imperceptibly and placed two-up on 200 double-sided sheets, for R120.
The copy shop charges the student the total, R320, saving them R180 (36%).
There are never stock shortages, these ring-bound books lie flat while studying, and they’re often easier to mark up with notes and highlights.
In the end, our message is simple: it’s time for a #textbookrevolution: textbooks don’t need a bloated supply chain – they can and should be cheaper. That revolution starts with Paperight.
What are some real student examples?
Yazeed Peters works full-time and is studying part-time through UNISA. He’s studying economics, accounting, customer service and marketing. He needs six textbooks that together cost at least R2240. If they were available from Paperight outlets, he’d pay only R1310, and save R930 – a saving of over 40%.
Tshegofatso Masha is studying first-year civil engineering at UCT. He’ll do twenty courses this year, for which he needs to buy 7 textbooks. In a store, he’d pay about R7175 for these. If they were available on Paperight, he’d pay R5126, saving R2049 – 29%. And that includes the cost of printing out a 1000-page, full-colour, A4 textbook. With Paperight, he’d only have to print what he needed from it, saving even more money.
Philippa Dewey is studying final-year law at UCT. The seven books she’s prescribed would cost R4300 normally. From Paperight outlets they would cost her only R2500. She’d save R1800, 42% of her textbook bill.
In every case here, the publisher still earns the equivalent of 30% of the retail price of the traditional book, which for many publishers matches current gross margins including equivalent royalties in rand terms.
How does Paperight work in stores?
A student walks into a copy shop, asks for a textbook, and the copy shop prints and ring-binds it within hours or even minutes. Every page includes the names of the student, copy shop, and publisher, and the date of purchase.
How is this possible? We work with publishers to provide an online library of books that copy shops can legally print out. For each print-out, they pay a licence fee from a pre-paid account. The copy shop makes money from the printing.
Publishers can set their licence fees to make the same gross margin they’ve always made (about 30% of the retail price for most publishers). Paperight gets a 20% commission on the licence fees.
So, by replacing traditional printing, warehousing, shipping, wastage and retail with a simple copy-shop print-out, we can reduce final cost of a textbook by 40%, with no loss to the publisher.
This is nothing short of a revolution in textbook delivery, dramatically reducing the overall cost of tertiary education.
If, starting today, we could save every university student in South Africa R1000 a year, then at current inflation and enrolment-growth rates, by 2030 we’d have saved them a total of R52 billion.
What are our challenges?
To make this saving a reality, we are up against four key challenges.
Publishers mistrust copy shops after years of rampant piracy. Even though Paperight distribution is logically better than having your books photocopied anonymously, publishers struggle to overcome their long-standing unease. As a result, they are reluctant to put core textbooks on Paperight.
Copy shops have to learn new tricks, especially how to promote books. They also have to train their staff members on how to use paperight.com. We do broad PR and provide promotional materials and support, but ultimately they have to do the local legwork.
University bookshops have exclusivity on campus. Usually, only one retailer is allowed to sell textbooks on campus – potentially preventing copy shops on campus from selling Paperight print-outs. In theory, this secured market should help bookstores give better service to students. In practice, it creates a sheltered monopoly with no competition effects.
Lecturers don’t enjoy changing the books they prescribe. But to make textbooks much cheaper for their students – to improve purchase rates and student performance – they need to choose books that are on Paperight, or pressure publishers into putting their books on Paperight. Lecturers are the most powerful customers in the textbook industry.
What are we asking of people?
Each player in the textbook ecosystem has a part to play in the #textbookrevolution.
Lecturers who prescribe books are the most influential people in publishing – they have tremendous power to change things for the better. We want them to ask publishers to sell their prescribed books through Paperight, too.
Students are at the heart of the #textbookrevolution, it matters to them more than anyone. So we’re asking them to spread the word that there’s a better way.
University administrators can grease the wheels by getting campus copy shops and book shops to join Paperight; they can distribute tutorials through our network; and use their mailing lists to tell people about the #textbookrevolution.
Authors want more people to read their books for less (while still earning royalties). We want them to ask you, as publishers, to sell their books through Paperight, too. (We also offer publishers and published authors telephonic advice on structuring royalties for Paperight sales.)
The big picture
The #textbookrevolution is bigger than Paperight: there are many other ways that publishing can reduce its bloated supply chain to cut the cost of tertiary education. That’s why we’re not calling this the #paperightrevolution. We just want to play our part, alongside others, in getting more students through university well-educated.
We’re deeply grateful to the publishers and copy shops that have already joined the #textbookrevolution, even though many have only taken baby steps so far.
We need many, many more allies to make this a reality. Please spread the word: it’s time for a #textbookrevolution.
Last week saw the release of matric results for 2013 in the Western Cape. Two schools in the Western Cape that used Paperight’s past matric exam papers as part of their teaching this year saw huge improvements in their pass rates and the quality of their passes.
Pelican Park High School’s principal, Mr. Cader Tregonning, made it his mission to pull his school’s socks up. When he heard about Paperight matric exam past papers, he encouraged all students to buy them at the beginning of the school year. It was clear to see that those that had bought them were sailing ahead in marks and confidence by the middle of the year. Pelican Park High School ultimately achieved a pass rate of 93.5% (up from 80% in 2012), and had 5 subjects with a 100% pass rate: English, Afrikaans, History, Life Orientation, Mathematical Literacy.
Silverstream Secondary School had the unfortunate distinction of being the school in the Western Cape with the lowest pass rate in 2012. Minuteman Press Cape Town stepped in to help them out by donating Paperight materials to their students. Despite enormous adversity – including gangsterism in the surrounding areas – the staff and students worked hard in 2013 and their hard work shows in their final results. Silverstream Secondary School achieved a pass rate of 69.1% (up from 34.2% in 2012). That means that their pass rate almost doubled. Even better, the number of students who achieved Diploma passes went from 9.2% to 38.2%, meaning that more matriculants from the school can look forward to tertiary education.
So there we have it! Proof that Paperight materials are essential in the classroom. At such affordable rates, we can make sure that more classrooms are better equipped to ensure that their students have the best possible chance of success. Why not head down to your local high school/s and introduce yourself with a copy of Paperight’s catalogue? You’ll find a copy here for download.
If you would like to get involved by sponsoring a school by supplying them with much-needed educational supplements, or would just like to find out more about our programme and what it takes, please contact us at team@paperight.com or 021 671 1278.
Our design team has prepared new marketing materials for the coming year.
Five new designs have been added to ourposter archivefor your convenience. These posters feature healthcare textbooks, children’s books, IT textbooks, teaching guides and the super-popular Manga Shakespeare series. Click here to see them. Simply print the posters out in any size up to A1, write your own prices into the bubbles provided and display in-store. If you would like your logo to be added to any of our posters, just email us. We’re here to help you make a splash in your neighbourhood.
At Paperight, we have hundreds of great classic books that we have redesigned ourselves to put in our print-on-demand library. Now we’re offering designers an opportunity to get their artwork featured on our book covers for 33 classic books.
All of the best covers will be accepted for use through Paperight and the designer’s name will be included on the book’s imprint page. The best 3 designers will receive personalised Paperight copies of the books that they designed covers for!
Choose from the following books to design for:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Frankenstein, Great Expectations, Hamlet, Heart of Darkness, Jane Eyre, Macbeth, Mansfield Park, Mhudi (Sol Plaatje), Middlemarch Vol. 1, Middlemarch Vol. 2, Middlemarch Vol. 3, Mrs Dalloway, Othello, Paradise Lost, Pride and Prejudice, Robinson Crusoe, Romeo & Juliet, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Canterbury Tales, The Great Gatsby, The Last of the Mohicans, The Republic, The Scarlet Letter, The Secret Agent, To the Lighthouse, Ulysses, Vanity Fair, Villette, Walden, Wuthering Heights
This competition falls under the awesome spirit of World Design Capital Cape Town 2014, the competition is open to all.
Other terms and conditions:
Entries must be emailed to team@paperight.com, as a high res .jpeg or as a PDF.
Cover designs must include the name of the book and the author’s name. The designer’s name must not appear in the design.
Winning designers will be asked to sign a simple, non-exclusive license agreement to use their cover design indefinitely on Paperight books and marketing.
Manga Shakespeare is now available at all Paperight outlets! Intrigued by these comic book version of the Bard’s plays? So were we. Paperight’s Marketing Coordinator Marie-Louise Rouget takes a look at them here.
Help sell your Paperight services to schools – and attract sponsors for bulk donations of books – with our new sponsor’s and schools guides. Our guides are quick-and-easy summaries of the benefits that Paperight outlets can bring, whether it’s helping schools get easier, cheaper and more immediate access to books, or helping a business spend their social-responsibility budget on a sponsorship that can make a huge difference to people’s lives.
You can find the online version for schools here and sponsors here, and the printed guides version for schools here and for sponsors here.
This week we are proud to launch the latest tool at your disposal to use in your Paperight outlet. Outlets have asked us for an improved catalogue that they can print out and let their customers browse in-store. So, here it is!
Our colourful, easy-to-use product catalogue details some of the very best of what is available through Paperight. Split into easy browsing categories – such as teen reading, childcare, textbooks and matric exam packs – this document gives customers a convenient, immediate alternative to visiting the Paperight website. As this is a general catalogue, however, it contains no pricing information for the individual products.
For maximum effect, this catalogue should be printed in A4, in colour, bound and placed at point of sale. Download it here. If you would like a copy with your business’s branding included or want to give us feedback, please email us here.
Students, lecturers, university administrators, media outlets and publishers are all getting on board with the #textbookrevolution. We’re thrilled to announce that SHAWCO from the University of Cape Town is one of our most recent converts.
Last week saw the release of matric results for 2013 in the Western Cape. Two schools in the Western Cape that used Paperight’s past matric exam papers as part of their teaching this year saw huge improvements in their pass rates and the quality of their passes.
