E-book news
Mar. 3rd, 2011 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alanajoliInteresting news in e-books lately (besides the fact that mine are available…):
First, Random House, the last of the big six to hold-out on the agency model (making it possible for booksellers to offer discounts and promotions on their books) has succumbed, possibly due to the announcement of the new iPad. I don't necessarily think the agency model is a bad thing. I'm glad for writers to be getting their fair share of royalties. But I'm also a long-time Barnes and Noble member. That discount I get on print books can't be used on e-books, I believe due to the agency model. So it certainly makes memberships like the B&N one less useful. I imagine this is equally true for other stores offering loyalty incentives. It looks like the agency model is industry standard from here out, however. Maybe that will give some advantage to small presses that release e-books on the non-agency model – or maybe soon we won't recall what e-book purchasing was like before the agency model fell into place.
HarperCollins made some moves of its own this week, impacting library e-book lending. The company has decided that e-books should only be loaned 26 times before the library needs to lease a new copy. In response, some librarians are calling for a boycott. I'm still doing some research on this to decide whether it merits a rant about the way things are changing in the industry. I do think it's bad business to offer a product or service and then change the way that product or service is offered in such a way that the consumer loses out. I have not heard whether HC is going to be lowering its e-book prices for libraries to accommodate this change – which, if they were, would make me think, well, at least they're trying to make this pill easier to swallow. I e-mailed local library buyers asking about the average number of circulations a hardcover book can withstand, and 26 is actually not an unreasonable expectation for a very popular book. (The range the fiction buyer e-mailed me varied, but numbers like 18 and 33 and 25 make 26 seem in the ballpark.) Hardcover books are not eternal, of course. E-books incur no physical damage when they're loaned out the way that hardcovers or paperbacks do. Saying that there should be some limit on the number of times the e-books can be loaned does strike me as somewhat reasonable – though, again, I'd love to see some carrot being offered to librarians, such as a lower price, to make up for the change in policy.
Overall, though, libraries are not a cash cow. Many are struggling with budgets, and materials are only a portion of a library's expenses. I don't really think a boycott is going to be necessary from libraries: I do think HarperCollins is likely to see its sales drop as libraries make purchases that will stay in their collections. If I were a book buyer for a library and I had the choice between purchasing popular books that would never expire and popular books I could only loan out for about a year, I'd certainly select more from the first category than from the second category. It would allow me to stretch my budget further and acquire more books for my patrons to have access to. The cost/benefit analysis of buying HarperCollins titles is going to change, and it will surprise me greatly if they don't see an impact on purchases from libraries based on this decision – not out of moral outrage, but out of simple, logical budgeting.
First, Random House, the last of the big six to hold-out on the agency model (making it possible for booksellers to offer discounts and promotions on their books) has succumbed, possibly due to the announcement of the new iPad. I don't necessarily think the agency model is a bad thing. I'm glad for writers to be getting their fair share of royalties. But I'm also a long-time Barnes and Noble member. That discount I get on print books can't be used on e-books, I believe due to the agency model. So it certainly makes memberships like the B&N one less useful. I imagine this is equally true for other stores offering loyalty incentives. It looks like the agency model is industry standard from here out, however. Maybe that will give some advantage to small presses that release e-books on the non-agency model – or maybe soon we won't recall what e-book purchasing was like before the agency model fell into place.
HarperCollins made some moves of its own this week, impacting library e-book lending. The company has decided that e-books should only be loaned 26 times before the library needs to lease a new copy. In response, some librarians are calling for a boycott. I'm still doing some research on this to decide whether it merits a rant about the way things are changing in the industry. I do think it's bad business to offer a product or service and then change the way that product or service is offered in such a way that the consumer loses out. I have not heard whether HC is going to be lowering its e-book prices for libraries to accommodate this change – which, if they were, would make me think, well, at least they're trying to make this pill easier to swallow. I e-mailed local library buyers asking about the average number of circulations a hardcover book can withstand, and 26 is actually not an unreasonable expectation for a very popular book. (The range the fiction buyer e-mailed me varied, but numbers like 18 and 33 and 25 make 26 seem in the ballpark.) Hardcover books are not eternal, of course. E-books incur no physical damage when they're loaned out the way that hardcovers or paperbacks do. Saying that there should be some limit on the number of times the e-books can be loaned does strike me as somewhat reasonable – though, again, I'd love to see some carrot being offered to librarians, such as a lower price, to make up for the change in policy.
Overall, though, libraries are not a cash cow. Many are struggling with budgets, and materials are only a portion of a library's expenses. I don't really think a boycott is going to be necessary from libraries: I do think HarperCollins is likely to see its sales drop as libraries make purchases that will stay in their collections. If I were a book buyer for a library and I had the choice between purchasing popular books that would never expire and popular books I could only loan out for about a year, I'd certainly select more from the first category than from the second category. It would allow me to stretch my budget further and acquire more books for my patrons to have access to. The cost/benefit analysis of buying HarperCollins titles is going to change, and it will surprise me greatly if they don't see an impact on purchases from libraries based on this decision – not out of moral outrage, but out of simple, logical budgeting.
