Online petition over library ebook embargo

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I think it's fair clear what he meant, i.e. a lost sale in the context of an ebook would be any time that a customer wanted a specific ebook and didn't buy it, either because it wasn't available, or because that customer obtained the ebook without buying it. While I may not agree with the definition with respect to libraries (who actually do buy licenses for the ebooks), I think it's clear that he's not trying to say that borrowing from a library is the same as pirating.

Than he should NOT have used a definition of lost sale that defines what a lost sale is in the context of Internet Piracy.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Than he should NOT have used a definition of lost sale that defines what a lost sale is in the context of Internet Piracy.

Perhaps read my entire message and use context clues within it.

Also libraries are still a lower cost to the consumer than buying the book.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Perhaps read my entire message and use context clues within it.

Also libraries are still a lower cost to the consumer than buying the book.

And not an illegal one. You picked the wrong definition, period. That was my clue.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

And not an illegal one. You picked the wrong definition, period. That was my clue.

I'm sorry you lack the reading comprehension to understand the larger argument.

Of course making outlandish claims against other members here seems to be something you excel at. Looking at the rest of my recent posts on this subject up to and including that one should make it very clear I don't lump piracy in with libraries.

Because I literally said piracy amounts to very little loss earlier in the thread.

I expect users of a site dedicated to reading would be capable of reading more than a single post.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

I'm sorry you lack the reading comprehension to understand the larger argument.

Of course making outlandish claims against other members here seems to be something you excel at. Looking at the rest of my recent posts on this subject up to and including that one should make it very clear I don't lump piracy in with libraries.

Because I literally said piracy amounts to very little loss earlier in the thread.

I expect users of a site dedicated to reading would be capable of reading more than a single post.

I take no offence in your opinion. I took offence in this particular post for incorrect word usage.

You were trying to sell me a tomato as fruit. If I go to the grocery store, I expect the tomatos to be in the vegetable section. Botanists definition be damned.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

I take no offence in your opinion. I took offence in this particular post for incorrect word usage.

You were trying to sell me a tomato as fruit. If I go to the grocery store, I expect the tomatos to be in the vegetable section. Botanists definition be damned.

Incorrect word usage, which you then applied to the entirety of what I was saying, despite other posts being entirely contrary to your reading of it, and me making no direct ties to the piracy aspect.

And then lobbed insults based in your moral judgement.

Please get off your high horse, and start reading in a wider context.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Incorrect word usage, which you then applied to the entirety of what I was saying, despite other posts being entirely contrary to your reading of it, and me making no direct ties to the piracy aspect.

And then lobbed insults based in your moral judgement.

Please get off your high horse, and start reading in a wider context.

Nice try. In the context of the library there is no lost sale involved at all. What you have is lost revenue. The publisher did not lose a sale, they simply allowed too many discounted sales to libraries. When you lose a sale, you lose revenue. But not everytime you lose revenue is it due to a lost sale.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Nice try. In the context of the library there is no lost sale involved at all. What you have is lost revenue. The publisher did not lose a sale, they simply allowed too many discounted sales to libraries. When you lose a sale, you lose revenue. But not everytime you lose revenue is it due to a lost sale.

Except they do lose a sale since the borrower of the book didn’t buy a copy. Since publishers sell a license to the library they gain from that however they still have lost the sale to the person borrowing. Since the licenses aren’t on a pay per borrow system.

The library is merely the agency through which the sale was lost.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Except they do lose a sale since the borrower of the book didn’t buy a copy. Since publishers sell a license to the library they gain from that however they still have lost the sale to the person borrowing. Since the licenses aren’t on a pay per borrow system.

The library is merely the agency through which the sale was lost.

No, you are confusing intent to read with willingness to buy your own copy at full retail price. Jon is very interested in reading a certain book, therefore he will cave in and eventually buy his own copy anyway. In Jon's case I doubt it is true, and he even said so. The assumption that makes you think that is possibly believing in special snow flakes?

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

No, you are confusing intent to read with willingness to buy your own copy at full retail price. Jon is very interested in reading a certain book, therefore he will cave in and eventually buy his own copy anyway. In Jon's case I doubt it is true, and he even said so. The assumption that makes you think that is possibly believing in special snow flakes?

No, you're looking at it from a consumer point of view, not from a business point of view.

From a business point of view that's a lost sale. There are things they could do, in theory, to get the sale but it becomes a question of if it's still profitable to do those things. Regardless of that decision though it's still a lost sale, it's either calculated as an acceptable loss to revenue or an unexpected loss in revenue.

The acceptable loss is obvious, when the publisher would be losing too much to make the sale. The exact amount a book should sell for isn't a debate we should bother with since this forum is already plagued by those from time to time, but the actual specific figure isn't needed here. We just need to know that the sale price X has to be higher than the loss in profits price Y.

The unexpected loss is any loss they do not account for in their projections. Which can be made up of numerous factors, we really do not need to get into the details on. Library borrows are one, but certainly not the only one.


And yes this is a simplification of the whole ordeal, if you recall I wanted to try and avoid getting into the nitty gritty of this because it's largely irrelevant. The point is the publisher sees the libraries lending out multiple licenses of new books within 90s days as a potential loss in revenue, which is caused by loss of sales. They are counting on the people who can be swayed to buy, but don't for a second assume they have not factored in the people who refuse to buy, as lost sales. Those become acceptable because they'd either need to reduce the price of the book to Y or provide some other incentive which would effectively reduce X to Y for the particular book.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

No, you're looking at it from a consumer point of view, not from a business point of view.

No I am not. I am looking at it from the publishers point of view. Every time they sell, they make money. Every single time. Whether they sell it to the library or through an ebook retailer. Obviously the profit margin in the new release window is too low on the sales to the library in the publishers eye. They are not losing money by giving the ebook away for free to the library. They are certainly not paying the library to take the ebook. They are losing potential profit on higher profit margin to sales to individual readers. Very big distinction.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

No I am not. I am looking at it from the publishers point of view. Every time they sell, they make money. Every single time. Whether they sell it to the library or through an ebook retailer. Obviously the profit margin in the new release window is too low on the sales to the library in the publishers eye. They are not losing money by giving the ebook away for free to the library. They are certainly not paying the library to take the ebook. They are losing potential profit on higher profit margin to sales to individual readers. Very big distinction.

And you’re still wrong.

So publishers sell to the library. Library lends out book. The people borrow said book. Those people do not buy the book. The library doesn’t give the publishers anything regardless of how much the book is borrowed for a single license they may or may not purchase additional licenses that’s not actually material to the topic as it just exponentiates the issue.

The publisher still views the people who borrowed the book as lost sales since they could have sold to them as well as the library. And again it doesn’t matter if the person was never going to buy the book only borrow it from the library it’s still something that the publishers view as a lost sale.

And again the lost sales from selling to the library are factored in. But they exist.

You’re right that they’re losing out on higher profits but you’re ignoring the reason why.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

So publishers sell to the library. Library lends out book. The people borrow said book. Those people do not buy the book. The library doesn’t give the publishers anything regardless of how much the book is borrowed for a single license they may or may not purchase additional licenses that’s not actually material to the topic as it just exponentiates the issue.

The publisher still views the people who borrowed the book as lost sales since they could have sold to them as well as the library. And again it doesn’t matter if the person was never going to buy the book only borrow it from the library it’s still something that the publishers view as a lost sale.

And again the lost sales from selling to the library are factored in. But they exist.

An interesting claim. I somehow doubt that any publisher is far enough removed from reality to believe that if the library did not have the book to loan, every person who would have borrowed the book would have gone out and purchased their very own personal copy.

I just checked the 27 ebooks added to my local library in the last 7 days. 16 of them had wait times over 6 months. 1 of them had a 2 week wait time, 2 had a 6 week wait time with the remainder pretty much evenly scattered over the 8 to 20 week wait times.

As for lost sales and lost profits, given the pricing of ebooks for library loans, the profit margin on a single library sale is much higher than the profit margin on a single retail ebook purchase. This would have to be balanced against the potential profit of the possible sales lost due to the 26 to 52 loans allowed by publishers on that "sale" to the library.

As an example, one ebook recently purchased by my local library cost them $49.30 Cdn for 26 loans or 1 year (whichever comes first). I can purchase the book from Kobo for $8.99 Cdn -- a mere $40.31 less than the library paid. A rather different situation from pbooks where the library can buy the book for it's SRP or less from any retailer, no loan limits, no drop dead dates.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

And you’re still wrong.

So publishers sell to the library. Library lends out book. The people borrow said book. Those people do not buy the book. The library doesn’t give the publishers anything regardless of how much the book is borrowed for a single license they may or may not purchase additional licenses that’s not actually material to the topic as it just exponentiates the issue.

The publisher still views the people who borrowed the book as lost sales since they could have sold to them as well as the library. And again it doesn’t matter if the person was never going to buy the book only borrow it from the library it’s still something that the publishers view as a lost sale.

And again the lost sales from selling to the library are factored in. But they exist.

You’re right that they’re losing out on higher profits but you’re ignoring the reason why.

I am wrong because why?

The publishers say: 43% of reads (library) generate only 15% of revenue.

Who is to blame? The libraries, because they make it too easy to borrow ebooks?

I fail to see the reason of that conundrum? Here is my reasoning of why ebooks have this discrepancy: Ebook only readers read ebooks, because they are no longer willing or capable to read paper. A typical ebook only reader is no longer willing to pay for expensive new release publisher ebooks for the majority of their reading. So ebook sales from those ebook only readers declined a lot for publishers. The reason for that decline is is not that the library got all of a sudden more attractive due to frictionless convenience, but that cheaper ebooks get bought instead. Simple demand and supply.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by DNSB

An interesting claim. I somehow doubt that any publisher is far enough removed from reality to believe that if the library did not have the book to loan, every person who would have borrowed the book would have gone out and purchased their very own personal copy.

Nor do I claim they do. A lost sale is not always something you -can- get back. I have in fact spelled out previously that this would fall into the accounted for losses. But any business worth a damn is still going to factor in losses they can not prevent.

I just checked the 27 ebooks added to my local library in the last 7 days. 16 of them had wait times over 6 months. 1 of them had a 2 week wait time, 2 had a 6 week wait time with the remainder pretty much evenly scattered over the 8 to 20 week wait times.

Which:

1) assumes no one on those lists returns them early

2) provides no information on the number of licenses the library has for those books

3) provides no information about the buying intentions of anyone on those lists

4) does not account for people who may be part of multiple library systems one of which you're looking at

As for lost sales and lost profits, given the pricing of ebooks for library loans, the profit margin on a single library sale is much higher than the profit margin on a single retail ebook purchase. This would have to be balanced against the potential profit of the possible sales lost due to the 26 to 52 loans allowed by publishers on that "sale" to the library.

As an example, one ebook recently purchased by my local library cost them $49.30 Cdn for 26 loans or 1 year (whichever comes first). I can purchase the book from Kobo for $8.99 Cdn -- a mere $40.31 less than the library paid. A rather different situation from pbooks where the library can buy the book for it's SRP or less from any retailer, no loan limits, no drop dead dates.

Yes, a library will pay more for a given books license. You'll note I did not claim the publishers weren't making good money off the library. My only claim has been that they count the borrowed books as lost sales. Of course with your own example the publisher only needs to entice 5 people in that 90 day period to not wait for the library to have the book before the those sales overtake the library sale.

As I've said before, a publisher isn't going to just sit back and say "well we sold to the library for a nice profit, lets just leave the possible extra money on the table'. That's not how businesses operate, they want to maximize their profit.

So Macmillan limits libraries to 1 license for the first 90 days, in that 90 days it's fully possible greater than 5 people will buy the book. The probability only goes up using the figures you provided above with longer and longer wait times. And as I demonstrated in an earlier post those 5 sales start to mean a lot of profit as you crunch the numbers.