From Library Journal: “In the first significant revision to lending terms for ebook circulation, HarperCollins has announced that new titles licensed from library ebook vendors will be able to circulate only 26 times before the license expires.” The idea is that this matches the average number of times a print book can be checked out before it falls apart and needs to be replaced.
As you might have guessed, this has not gone over well. There’s the usual cry to boycott the publisher, lots of anger, a Twitter hashtag, and plenty of accusations that HC is stuck in the past and doesn’t understand the future of publishing.
My agent weighs in here: “I’m of mixed emotion on this. I don’t think it’s prima facie a heinous thing to do because businesses do need to adjust to changing business models … On the other hand, it pisses off customers.”
I came across one author suggesting that the idea itself wasn’t necessarily bad, but 26 copies was too few. I.e., it’s not the principle of the thing, but the numbers.
I’m still thinking about the implications. I love libraries, both as a reader and an author. Libraries buy my books, and they allow readers to discover my work. Realistically, unrestricted e-book lending could decrease the number of my books libraries buy. If those books never wear out or expire, a library could keep all of my work in circulation forever. Which would be really, really cool on the one hand … but could also cut into sales, and I like being able to pay my mortgage.
Two things I’m pretty firm on are:
- Authors deserve to be paid fairly for their work. So do publishers and agents.
- I like libraries very much, and I don’t want to lose the service they provide to the community.
I keep coming back to the Public Lending Right (PLR) system used in a number of non-U.S. countries. Basically, PLR is an author’s “legal right to payment from government each time their books are borrowed from public libraries.” Such a system would eliminate the source of contention, at least from the authors’ perspective. If I get paid for each checkout of my books, then by all means, keep all of my e-books forever!
I think it would be fair to split such payment with the publisher and agent as well. And we’re probably not talking about a huge amount of cash here, at least for nonbestselling authors like myself. But I really like the principle of the thing.
Actually implementing it could be a problem. Libraries, like many public services, continue to be targeted for massive budget cuts these days. I asked a librarian friend for her thoughts, and she suggested it would require some sort of tax to cover those PLR payments. Not likely to happen any time soon, given the current political environment in the U.S. (If things continue, I imagine a lot of libraries will have to close, which could make the whole thing moot.)
I don’t know the best way to be fair to libraries and their patrons as well as to authors and publishers. Maybe it would be better to switch to a rental model where libraries pay an annual fee for the right to lend out a certain number of e-book titles from publisher X. Older books could be removed from the list over time, replaced by newer and more popular releases.
I’m sure there are flaws with that plan, too. I don’t have the answers. But I’d love to hear what other folks think, particularly my author and librarian friends.
Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.
My Books
(August 2013)
Comments
Limiting ebooks to 26 check outs is just a further imposition by the publisher on the buyer of the ebook. What they are doing is not going to increase sales to readers, it's going to decrease sales to libraries. My library has downloadable ebook and audio collections, but I never use them because there is too little material on there to be worth it. It is not worth searching their ebook and audio collections for download when I can simply request the physical book or CD much more easily, and obtain it more quickly. Add to that the fact that the software for downloading and managing the rights is kludgy and doesn't really work on all of my equipment, and borrowing ebooks is a total fail. And I'm not so sure that isn't the publisher's goal to begin with--to make library ebook lending unmanageable. Which would be fine, if we could continue to count on physical books being available in the same numbers they are now. But think what that means if/when epublishing becomes the dominant model. All of a sudden, something big is out in ebook only, and the only people who can access it are those who can afford to buy the ebook or those who live in a community with a library rich enough to accommodate the publisher's "license fees" for the book.
Many people have no qualms about cracking spines and dog earing pages, and even the gentlest reader will crease a pb spine if they re-read the book often enough.
That said, I think 26 checkouts as a lifespace of a library's ebook copy is utter bull sh--.
*and to those who are tempted to argue that these sales amounts to pennies. Our FOL has an annual budget of about $50,000. About 10% of that comes from book sales - both in branch and online.
Books we take off because they are in poor condition can have many more uses; we can't tell how many on some of the older ones, because they predate our online library catalog. But 80-100 isn't uncommon.
Then there are the books that get pulled off during weeding because no one has checked them out in the last five years.
Note that this is fiction; nonfiction has criteria other than circulation/condition/number of copies on the shelf.
Small libraries don't have room to keep many books for long, large ones can keep books longer.
It is possible since Overdrive books can circ as little as one week for a popular bestselling book to hit 26 uses in 26 weeks. Other less popular titles might never get to 26.
Agreed. I just don't see how short-sighted the publishers can be, given that book buyers are also often library users too.
Imagine having to keep track of which books are expiring and having to decide if you want to purchase a new copy of it or not. Especially if they're all going to be expiring at different, random times.