Apple’s announcement on Thursday that they were entering into the textbook market was generally met with enthusiasm, despite controversy over the EULA for their new iBooks Author tool. The program promised to deliver textbooks as interactive ebooks for $14.99 or less.

Now it looks like positive buzz isn’t the only reaction Apple has gotten to the announcement. According to Global Equity Research (via AllThingsD) Apple sold 350,000 textbooks in the three days following the announcement. The report also showed upwards of 90,000 downloads of iBooks Author.

Though these numbers could be a surge due to the newness of the product, if they remain consistent it could be a major boon both to Apple and to textbook publishers, as well as to education in general. Much depends on Apple’s ability to persuade schools to adopt their textbook program, though. It will be interesting to see how this progresses in the coming months and years. The timing of Apple’s announcement is helpful, however, as it gives school boards and teachers plenty of time to weigh implementation before the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year.