Quote:
Originally Posted by rcentros
I'm trying to figure out how Overdrive makes money. Selling books to the libraries? Charging their services to the libraries by the book loan? And an offshoot question ... does Overdrive pay Amazon to loan the Kindle book versions? Or does Amazon simply offer it as a service to keep people in their ecosystem? And at what point does Overdrive (Kobo) quit offering the service to Amazon (Kindle) books?
Lot of questions, probably not a lot of answers available, but I'm just curious how all this works.
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You might want to check out a Forbes article (
You'll Need a PhD To Make Sense Of The Pricing Schemes Publishers Impose On Libraries for some information. If you get confused, don't worry, you are not alone.
As for Kindle books? The last time I talked to a librarian, the cost for Kindle was slightly higher than for epub. One interesting oddment from Amazon's site is that you can borrow Kindle ebooks from 11,000 libraries while the total number of public libraries in the USA is in the 16,500 range.
As to when Rakuten might drop Kindle support? My quick answer would be when they stop being able to make a profit.