On 7/26/2011 6:07 AM, Devitt wrote:
>
>
> Your library should be able to tell you which app will run your book. At
> least I hope it works that way. I live in a small town. We're still
> waiting for our library to offer ebooks. The local librarians tell me
> the publishing houses charge libraries the same amount for ebooks as
> they do for hard copies yet limit the number of times ebooks can be
> lent. So a popular title could cost them double in ebook format in the
> long run.
>
> I was also unpleasantly surprised to hear that libraries pay MUCH more
> for books than the public does. (If there is a librarian in our group
> who knows I'm wrong, please tell me!)
>
I wouldn't count on local librarians being able to tell you all the
different apps on all the different devices which could possibly work
with the ebooks. You can count on the ebooks being in epub format most
likely, and have DRM so any app which reads DRM epub books should work.
But of course, each library will have its own choices to make and
there may be other formats that certain publishers use, and you'll have
to wait to see what your library does.
It stands to reason that libraries pay more (although I don't see what
keeps them from going to Barnes and Noble to simply buy them off the
shelf) for several reasons --
1) the binding is different, made to stand up to repeated readings much
more than what the general public buys. Look at the copy of a
bestseller at your library and compare it to what you could buy at a
2) for every library copy that gets sold and circulated for example 40
times (bestsellers often go out that much) that means 40 copies which
the publisher doesn't sell. They have to make up for those lost sales
somehow.
3) ebooks never wear out, so the publishers are limiting the number of
times that they can be "checked out" trying to approximate the actual
life of a physical book. Just as with physical books, when a book has
worn out the library has to decide whether to replace it or not. If
there's a demand for it still, they'll replace it. If not, they won't
replace it. The publishers have found a way to replicate that same
situation for ebooks, so that they can generate the same sort of cash
flow they do from the sale of physical books.
It's all about economics -- as long as the publishers make good money
from library sales, whether physical books or ebooks, they won't use the
copyright law to shut them down, although there was a mention of such an
action about 10 years ago or so.
--
David H. Bailey
dhbailey@davidbaileymusicstudio.com
