Play Book Tag discussion

Has anyone seen this yet? I got an email from my local library today.

https://ebooksforall.org

First I have seen this. Thanks for link! Ability to borrow ebooks brought me back to being a library user.

I love and use libraries and think they are important but I wonder if it’s such a terrible thing to wait 8 weeks to give publishers a chance to earn some money back on impatient readers.

I might not know the big picture - is this just a first step in banning libraries or some other issue - and of that’s the case I would be with the libraries

But specifically this step seems fair enough to me

What do you think?

Libraries also pay a heck of a lot more for each "copy" of an ebook, so you'd think publishers would be making enough money that way? Plus, they usually pay for multiple copies.

There are still plenty of people who don't want to wait for the holds lists that are hundreds deep (or can be).

LibraryCin wrote: "There are still plenty of people who don't want to wait for the holds lists that are hundreds deep (or can be). "

Especially for a highly anticipated book. I'm reading one right now that had copies on hold for nearly 2 years.

~*Kim*~ wrote: "Especially for a highly anticipated book. I'm reading one right now that had copies on hold for nearly 2 years. ..."

Wow, crazy!

So, there are still plenty of people who will pay to bypass that wait.

My local library is NYPL. Anything remotely recent or suddenly hot because a movie or sequel or series is coming out...you are in for a wait that seems eternal. I waited 8 months for Miller's Valley for example, and I got on the wait list early. A friend borrowed my tablet to read Crazy Rich Asians on my borrow before the movie came out because I was already on the waitlist before the book took off. I think her number still hasn't come up. And NYPL has hundreds of ebook copies to loan...or did at the time.

So yes, many of us bypass the long waits and just buy it.

Idit wrote: "I love and use libraries and think they are important but I wonder if it’s such a terrible thing to wait 8 weeks to give publishers a chance to earn some money back on impatient readers.

I might ..."

I love borrowing ebooks from the library, BUT I can totally see how they cut into an author's revenue. According to Publisher's Weekly, a normal ebook sold by Macmillan to the library is $60 for two years access or 52 lends. That's $1.17 per lend.

With this new system, the library may buy one copy for $30 for 52 lends. So they get a discount. I think there should be some penalty (waiting) for library readers on new releases because authors really do deserve to enjoy some of the fruits of their labors. If I can't get a book from the library that I'm really interested in, I do buy it. I'm sure I'm not the only one. If it's a book I don't really care about that much, I'll ask if the library can get it, wait for it, buy it used, etc.

I don't think 8 weeks is a ridiculous amount of time to wait to give the author a shot at the extra sales that are likely to result; it's not like there aren't zillions of other books available.

I am not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand they are running a business and need to maximize profit, on the other people who can't afford books are denied the same access because they can't afford to buy...

But I guess that is how capitalism works, you are afforded certain luxuries because, well, you can afford it!

And we're talking about mostly new fiction I guess, so it isn't a huge loss to wait or at least it isn't denying people from education by putting a delay on the accessibility.

So, I'm torn.

I don't really think it helps publishers to do this, but time will tell.

I tend to agree with Anita (capitalists, unite! lol). You already see this with movies where the DVD comes out to purchase a few weeks to a month before it is available to rent on Amazon or RedBox.

And, I don't see it as rewarding people who can pay to own a book by giving them earlier access, I see it more as Anita does, that it protects the authors' and publishers' business at a time when the book industry is undergoing rapid changes and everyone is scrambling to figure out how to adapt to these changes in order to protect the broader book industry and promote libraries and free access to books.

On the flip side, I would not want this to be a slippery slope to longer wait times (until a book is off the NY Times list?! Until books sales dip for that particular title?) or result in limitations and restrictions on books that really do limit access to books at all.

It is always a balance!

Nicole - I’m quite the socialist (well kinda) and I still agree. I don’t think having everything immediately when we want for free it is a basic right

As long as they don’t empty libraries from popular books rule by rule, I think it’s absolutely ok to give a window for selling when the sales are at their peak. Most books only have this one peak (unless they become a movie or Rees W / Oprah W choose them for the clubs

I am with Anita and Nicole R--authors lose out the most when not enough people buy the books. It's like streaming services that don't pay songwriters (most songwriters don't make that much, so it robs them).

I don't know if I'm a capitalist or socialist ( ;) If I ruled the world it would be a mix, but not to worry, I have no illusions that I could run it well at all!!!) but know what it's like to be self-employed and to live without a steady paycheque! Also, we are getting too used to instant gratification, IMO, and I am including myself in this group.

So, here's another question. How much of it actually goes to the authors and how much to the publishers?

LibraryCin wrote: "So, here's another question. How much of it actually goes to the authors and how much to the publishers?"

The authors don't get that much per book, but the publishers also pay for marketing, editing, printing, distributing, etc, so they don't make a profit unless they sell over a certain number of copies (and that number depends on the size of the author advance, the amount of marketing, which varies greatly, etc).

I have never worked in publishing, but what I have written is easy for me to imagine because my husband and I are self-employed so we know all about overhead (I can't tell you how many times I have wanted to bang my head on the wall when people think that piano teachers only work during the lesson time or that they have no overhead even if they teach from home or at the student's homes, let alone my husband's business which has a lot more.)