Quote:
Originally Posted by dkperez
>And, (I have no idea whether it's Overdrive or publishers doing) the prices
>for ebooks is significantly HIGHER than the library pays for hard cover books.
>I doubt it's the publishers; again, referring to the already established model
>for journals, there's usually at least a 10% discount for anyone choosing to
>take an e-version only, even though these are also produced as print >versions.
Does anyone have real numbers on the way ebooks are being priced to libraries? In conversation, I was cited one instance by a librarian where a hard cover book was $24 while the corresponding ebook was $85. I can't say with certainty that it was Overdrive pocketing the extra 350 percent, but I find it difficult to believe.
As far as the "you can only lend the ebook 26 times before paying again", again in conversation with the librarians, I was told they have books that were well bound and have been leant over 200 times and are still in very good condition. On the other hand, the most recent Harry Potter was apparently so poorly constructed that it did, indeed, fall apart within 30 loans. I also presume the reading demographic may have been very different between the two books, causing much of the additional damage to poor Harry!
Like some others here, I'm a heavy library user. Primarily because I read for pleasure (when I'm not having to wade through some computer or photography text), and go through 3 - 4 books per week. I often try a new, questionable author's first book in a series at the library, and if it like it, I buy thereafter. Did it with Patricia Cornwell, Jonathon Kellerman, James Patterson, and on and on. With the current actions by the publishers, I've changed my purchasing habits a lot, and I'm buying far more discount books, finding free books, and using MR to find freebies and ESPECIALLY using the library to reserve books on paper instead of buying them. I don't care if I'm number 207 of 250 waiting, I'll wait six months instead of purchasing the book.
So, they may not care, but the actions of these publishers is saving me several thousand dollars per year. And lightening their bottom line by an equivalent amount.
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300 loans can be on the low end for a well bound adult fiction hardcover book. Granted this was a university library, but I worked for a couple of years at the Penn State main campus University library when I was a student there. Look at loan cards and a handful or records, there were plenty of books we had loaned out well over a thousand times and were still in fine condition. Plenty of books we had on the shelves in the collections were from the late 1800's and were in rough, but acceptable condition that based on only the ELECTRONIC loan information got loaned out roughly half a dozen times a year over their life (only since electronic records were kept). Take that back to the date of printing and how long it had been in the collection, that is pushing a thousand loans and over a century and the book was still going strong.
Granted, we also had books that sometimes only lasted a couple of dozen loans before some student fell asleep studying and knocked coffee all over the book or something else "stupid" that destroyed the book.
The average life of even a paperback book tends to be more than 50 loans however and hardbacks tend to be over 200 loans in most cases. So artificially limiting to 26 loans is incredibly stupid.
I agree with transactional royalities on ebook lending, but I also think it needs to be darned reasonable. Figure out what the replacement price would be on paper book. Then charge a fractional royalty per loan based on a 100-200 loan replacement cost, and to me that would still be gouging a bit.