Quote:
Originally Posted by shalym
There are *many* books that I've bought after first reading them in a library. I've also bought books that were first loaned to me by friends and relatives.
This is in addition to all of the authors that I first discovered because of libraries - most of my favorite authors fall into this category.
Shari
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I don't believe anyone has asserted "library checkouts never lead to sales".
What Macmillan wants is to prevent library checkouts from competing with sales for the first 8 weeks of a book being published.
If checking out a book had a high correlation to a person buying that very book....no publisher would be looking to alter their relationship with libraries.
Libraries and the publishers will keep negotiating their relationship.
It was inevitable that as checking out an ebook from the library became as easy as buying a book...publishers were going to react.
It's the same battle that the publishers had over Amazon setting the price of the entire NYT's best seller list at $9.99. After all hoopla, there came a choice. Accept time windowing of ebooks, or give up control of setting the price.
Apparently, those first few months of a book's being available for sale are a lucrative time window for the publishers.
Libraries are not going to win this battle. Nor should they. It is quite reasonable to withhold book borrowing for the first 2 months of a book's release.