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Long thread incoming on a subject I& #39;ve been giving a lot of interested thought to lately: libraries and ebooks! 1/?
So, I learned just last year what the average big publishing house& #39;s pricing model is for ebook sales to libraries. This thread basically blew my mind. (The whole thing is worth reading, but this is where she gets into the nitty-gritty of numbers.) https://twitter.com/kidsilkhaze/status/1115295950539456513
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2/?">https://twitter.com/kidsilkha...
As a reader, a library worker, *and* an author/indie publisher, I& #39;ve done a lot of thinking from both sides of the question about how a better pricing model could be worked out that would be fair to everyone. 3/?
I mean, I get the publisher& #39;s point of view. They feel if they sell an ebook for a simple list price and the library can loan it out indefinitely, they& #39;re getting nothing for an indefinite amount of readers reading their book. 4/?
However, I *don& #39;t* think the solution is to charge libraries a gouged price repeated every two years, which might end up discouraging them from buying ebooks or at least limiting how many they can buy. 5/?
I wondered: how about a system where libraries paid a low fee—say 99¢ or $1—each time an ebook was borrowed? This might be easier on libraries& #39; budgets, but still give the author/publisher a small steady stream of income. 6/?
If a book was wildly popular the checkout fees would add up over time—but maybe that would be offset a little by libraries *not* having to pay $50-$70 upfront for other mildly popular ebooks that are only checked out once in a while. 7/?
Well, lo and behold: I learned this month that OverDrive has actually introduced "cost-per-circ" titles that work very similarly to what I imagined (I was even pretty close about the fee). However, it looks like right now this is limited to "select" titles from publishers. 8/?
Could this be an initial experiment with a new business model? I think that would be pretty cool if it& #39;s successful. But that got me started on another train of thought: indie ebooks in OverDrive. 9/?
When we distribute to OverDrive through Kobo, Smashwords et al, we can set our own list prices; but how many checkouts do libraries get? How often do they have to repurchase? I& #39;d love to hear from #librarians, #indieauthors etc who know any details about this! 10/?
Another thought: would libraries possibly be more willing to take a chance on indie ebooks if they knew it would only cost them when the books were actually checked out? 11/?
I& #39;d love to see more quality indie ebooks in digital library catalogs. I think it would be cool if indies could lead the way in experimenting and figuring out a better pricing model. Could we do this if we had more control over how OverDrive sells our books to libraries? 12/?
