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Originally Posted by HarryT
One significant difference, however, between libraries and e-book "sharing" is that - at least in the UK (I'd be interested to know if it works differently in other countries) - libraries do pay authors for library loans. What happens in this country is that each year a "pot" of money is shared out to authors on the basis of the statistical percentage of library loans for their books. It's not a vast amount, but one SF author friend of mine (sadly no longer around) used to get a couple of thousand pounds a year that way.
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In the US the way it works depends on the publishing company. I think in some cases the books aren't owned by the libraries but rented (this can be particularly true for very popular authors where you need a large number of books in the first few months after publication, but don't want the same inventory a year later). Other publishers have special library editions that cost a library more than if you were buying the same book in a bookstore.