Heh, have you been watching the textbook approval circus in Texas lately? There are plenty of influential groups doing that _right now_ with paper books. Digital versions just mean the additions/subtractions will appear faster. The censorship issues won't change, they'll just be more efficient ;) .

As far as I can tell looking at the information provided by Apple, there's no legal requirement that free iBooks _must_ be distributed solely through the iTunes store. You can export in the native .iba format to the desktop or email the same file to anyone, which can then be loaded onto any iPad for viewing. Of course, the same can be done with a .pdf of the same work. You're only tied to the iTunes store if you want to make a buck off your book. If you have specifics indicating differently, please provide them.