MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Penguin Random House Changes Library Lending Model

darryl · 09-14-2018, 08:51 PM

I think we need to look at the very substantial changes in the industry to make a really informed guess about what is driving this change. Based on Author Earnings (which is sadly missed) and various other sources it seems that the sales "profile" for new books is very different from what it once was. In the past, virtually all books would make just about all the sales they were ever going to make in the few years after initial release. Now, of course, books can continue to make sales potentially for the life of the copyright. And they never go out of "print". Apparently even best selling books are selling less in this initial period than they once did. One possible explanation is that many readers are still buying these books but later. Traditional publishers have an excellent asset in their backlists. Whilst books were going out of print never to be seen again with all sales in that first print run, publishers had little problem with granting perpetual licences. But now the books remain out there, available for people to read and buy. And not in second hand bookshops where the publisher gets no revenue from the sale. On websites from Amazon on down. Whether or not they receive any publicity they are still there. People can discover them in many ways, from searches or browsing or recommendations, and for many books will from time to time. And, of course, as old readers are replaced by new, the old books are also new to new readers. I expect that even some relatively obscure genre fiction books will have periodic revivals in sales as they are discovered by a new generation of readers. All it takes is one new young reader to come across it, love it and spread the word. When these new readers search for something to read in the particular sub-genre they like, come across a prehistoric book from 2018 which looks interesting and search in the library they are not going to find it. But they will still be able to buy it.

If you are a publisher and want to make money in the future from your back-list granting perpetual licences is probably not the best way to go.

09-14-2018, 08:51 PM	#16
darryl Wizard Posts: 3,108 Karma: 60231510 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura H2O, Kindle Oasis, Huwei Ascend Mate 7	I think we need to look at the very substantial changes in the industry to make a really informed guess about what is driving this change. Based on Author Earnings (which is sadly missed) and various other sources it seems that the sales "profile" for new books is very different from what it once was. In the past, virtually all books would make just about all the sales they were ever going to make in the few years after initial release. Now, of course, books can continue to make sales potentially for the life of the copyright. And they never go out of "print". Apparently even best selling books are selling less in this initial period than they once did. One possible explanation is that many readers are still buying these books but later. Traditional publishers have an excellent asset in their backlists. Whilst books were going out of print never to be seen again with all sales in that first print run, publishers had little problem with granting perpetual licences. But now the books remain out there, available for people to read and buy. And not in second hand bookshops where the publisher gets no revenue from the sale. On websites from Amazon on down. Whether or not they receive any publicity they are still there. People can discover them in many ways, from searches or browsing or recommendations, and for many books will from time to time. And, of course, as old readers are replaced by new, the old books are also new to new readers. I expect that even some relatively obscure genre fiction books will have periodic revivals in sales as they are discovered by a new generation of readers. All it takes is one new young reader to come across it, love it and spread the word. When these new readers search for something to read in the particular sub-genre they like, come across a prehistoric book from 2018 which looks interesting and search in the library they are not going to find it. But they will still be able to buy it. If you are a publisher and want to make money in the future from your back-list granting perpetual licences is probably not the best way to go.