Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
That was interesting. From the FAQ:
Clicking on the "Open Letter" confirms that the old company was Overdrive:
This would seem to be a pitifully small number of titles, even if only a portion of what they will have on the 3M platform. Also, their description of the 3M beta problems sounds above the norm. As a professional programmer, I can understand performance problems when you start getting large numbers of simultaneous users. But this sounds lame, even for a beta test:
I theory, I like the 3M model on grounds of it being so inconvenient that publishers won't see it as a threat. In practice, I hope my libraries can afford to keep with Overdrive.
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From talking to my librarians, using overdrive wasn't error free or all that pleasant to learn--and they mentioned it was VERY expensive too. One of the reasons it took them so long to join (and when they did, they had to go in with two other libraries) was the overdrive software/platform fees--not the price of books. I think when people get angry at the publishers for not buying into the system, one thing that gets lost is that the middle man might be part of the problem. I looked at Overdrive's contract a few years ago to see if it was possible or worthwhile to try and get my books on the system. The problems were pretty hard to overcome. I would have had to raise the price of my books considerably for it to make sense (10 dollars or higher), join in with other writers (hassle) AND they take a cut from the price of the book when a library decides to license it. So overdrive gets money for supplying the platform and also a cut of each book that is licensed.
It can be very difficult to even consider doing the work involved to join a platform like that given some of the expenses. I would love to see more books in the system, but I can understand why some of the publishers are just walking away. The hassle and the expense is probably not working out logically for their bottom line (even counting exposure.) And I think a large reason might be the lack of competition in the library platform space. Other companies probably want to offer something like overdrive, but overdrive has a foot in the door.
There are other software platforms for libraries (not for ebooks--for checking out books) sold to libraries. I can tell you from working there that those companies take full advantage of the fact that the library is a government entity. They charge ENORMOUS fees for support, upgrades and licensing fees to use the software. I'm guessing Overdrive operates the same way.
So the barriers aren't just the publishers. There's politics/contracts with a government entity (read: cash cow) involved.
Just a few random thoughts.