Free Textbooks: An Online Company Tries a Controversial Publishing Model

The high prices of textbooks, which are approaching $1,000 per year for an average student, have those students and their professors crying for mercy.

Enter Flat World Knowledge. Starting next year, the new digital-textbook publisher will offer online, peer-reviewed, interactive, user-editable textbooks, free of charge. The catch? It's not clear whether the company can make money doing so.

"We are finding and signing authors who we believe are the best in their fields," said

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