[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by darryl

But I was more wondering about the financial implications for Authors and Publishers if more people borrow from the library rather than buying.

Are you asking about the financial implications of price sensitive readers borrowing rather than buying? The answer is that, without all the data the publisher had when making its pricing decision, it is impossible to say. Publisher incompetence can't be ruled out. However, they have the data -- meaning historical sales from all vendors, not just Amazon -- to make a reasonable statistics-based decision.

I don't think you were referring to the financial implication of borrowing eBooks for publishers. But the ability to charge libraries differently than individuals obviously is a financial plus for them.

Here's my most recent book-buying experience, and it does represent an loss for the publisher. I recently saw the following praised in a book I was reading, and decided I wanted to read it:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/381/dp/B0041...keywords=Blitz

Turns out it is not marketed in the US. This means that the paper book is unlikely to be in US libraries, although I guess I could have gotten it on interlibrary loan. And it means that the eBook is likely unavailable to me through legitimate outlets*, and certainly not available for the reasonable price I am seeing from Amazon UK (equivalent to US$4.56).

So I bought a used paper copy for US$5.59, shipped from Liverpool.

I've argued before for there being a small indirect benefit to author and publisher from used book sales. But my purchase obviously was not as good for the publisher as if I bought the eBook, or, for the author, if she has earned out her advance.

I guess that there is a financial benefit to the publisher in being able to charge differently in the US and EU, since consumers in the various countries have varying price sensitivity. But obviously there is no benefit in the eBook being unavailable to US-resident purchasers. Looking at openlibrary.org, it doesn't even seem available, to visually impaired Americans, as a Daisy eBook.

Is there any movement going on that would allow an exception, so that you could buy an eBook marketed in another country, when it isn't available in your own?

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* I say unlikely because, at least in the past, legitimate ePUB vendors, in Europe, might not always enforce geo-restrictions. But probably they would.