Quote:
Originally Posted by danwdoo
I do have to admit I can see one point in this. Less popular books could see their book sales really hurt by libraries. Right now, a major limiting factor of libraries is convenience. You have to actually go out and drive to the library to get the book. With eBooks, when it is just as convienient to borrow the book from a library's web page as an online bookstore, a lot of people would not be buying any books at all. Obviously more popular books would have long wait lists to push people to bookstores but a lot of other books would not. I'm not saying this approach is the right or even best one, but I do understand some of where they are coming from. Smaller distribution authors could really be hurt by ebook lending in the future.
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I think it could work differently for midlist authors. Library loans are about reader exposure. Most of my autobuy authors, even the midlist ones, I originally discovered through a library check-out. If I know I like an author from a library loan, I'm more likely to buy that author's next book. Library loans are one way a backlist keeps on giving. Also it's not unusual for the library to have only 1-2 books by a midlist author, leaving the new fan to buy the rest...