College textbook publisher Flat World Knowledge secured $15 million in Series B funding to help expand its digital book catalog. In the past the company has been focused on business and economics titles, but recently began expanding its catalog to include sociology and psychology books and plans to publish English composition, algebra, chemistry and American government books in coming months.

Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI) and Bessemer Venture Partners led the funding, which also included investment from companies such as Valhalla Partners, GSA Venture Partners (formerly Greenhill SAVP) and High Peaks Venture Partners also participated.

Flat World publishes traditional textbooks, but also publishes works with Creative Commons licenses. In an interview with eBookNewser last summer, Eric Frank, co-founder/president of Flat World Knowledge, explained how this works: “Our model starts by sticking with what works from the traditional industry – publishing expert-authored, high-quality, peer-reviewed textbooks that faculty want to use in their courses. Then, we flip the old model on its head. We license our books under a Creative Commons open license, in effect transferring control (legally) to adopting faculty to modify the textbook to better suit their own teaching goals.”

Flat World Knowledge, a publisher of openly-licensed college textbooks has doubled its business this year. This semester, the company is selling books on more than 800 college campuses, up from 400 last fall. EbookNewser caught up with Eric Frank, founder/CEO of Flat World Knowledge to discuss how the textbook business is evolving.

EBN: What’s going on in the textbook publishing industry?
EF: The industry is in turmoil. We’re in the midst of a national textbook affordability crisis caused by the industry’s inability to adapt to changing industry conditions – primarily driven by the impact of the Internet on the supply chain of publishers. Over the years, publishers have (rightly) competed with each other for market share. That competition drives up the cost of textbooks annually well beyond the rate of inflation. Books got more expensive than the average student could afford so students turned to the Internet to find less expensive alternatives.

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