Okay, I told @AtwaterRhodes that I'd have a more in-depth response when I got home, and here I am, at home. So here goes: WHY PIRATING BOOKS IS NOTHING AT ALL LIKE BORROWING IT FROM THE LIBRARY AND ALSO DON'T DO IT: A THREAD.
Now, for this argument I'm going to make an assumption--first because it's a fair one to make, and second because the argument hinges on it. The assumption is this: Every opportunity you are given to read a book is done with the goal of convincing you to buy the book.
Publishers are companies. Authors are employees. Companies want to make money. Employees want to get paid. I have now sufficiently supported this assumption to move forward with the argument.
So, the goal of putting the book in front of you is to get you to buy it. That ARC your friendly Penguin rep handed out? There to convince you to buy it when it comes out. The book on the bookstore shelf, the free reading on your Nook in B&N stores? There so you buy it.
Now, the great thing about libraries is, 1) they give you access to books FOR FREE, 2) they incentivize you to buy the book, 3) YOU get to incentivize THEM to buy more such books. Let's break this down.
1) (Just kidding, 1) needs no breakdown.)
2) Libraries incentivize you to buy books in three ways: First, because libraries apply the law of SCARCITY. There are only so many copies of the book to go around, and if it's a popular book there aren't enough. This encourages you to buy it.
Example: Some books I own I had not read when I bought them. I own them because there was a wait list a mile long and I WANTED to read them. Even with e-libraries, you are going to run out of copies if the book is popular enough.
Overdrive, for example, works because libraries pay for the right to loan out a given number of copies of the book at a time. If there's a wait list, you can either wait... or buy it. Pirating websites have no limits. No wait list = no incentive to skip the line.
The second way is by giving you a DEADLINE. For my birthday I asked for a boxed set of a series. Because I'd read it at the library. And it hurt to return it. If you want to continue reading something past the due date, you buy it. Pirating websites have no due dates.
The third and final way that libraries incentivize you to buy the book is by promoting AUTHOR LOYALTY. How do I know what to buy my mom come Christmas and birthday? By seeing which authors I got her at the library.
3) YOU get to incentivize LIBRARIES to buy books. This is a funny one that I don't think a lot of people process. Your library's ordering list probably has one, maybe two copies of the majority of books. I have a library with two branches; many, many books are only at one branch.
There's two sides to this. First, the sad side: A couple years ago, one of those branches closed for renovations and an expansion. For eighteen months. Leading up to the closing date, library employees removed every book that wasn't being checked out enough to pay to store.
The books at this library don't "float," meaning they have to go back where they came from. A whole lot of books got sold or donated. Books I had checked out, but no one else did, are gone, and the library isn't likely to buy from those authors again.
Now, the happy side! Aside from your suggestion box submissions (you make those, right? Because you LITERALLY get to DIRECTLY tell the library where they should spend their budget!), libraries see things that are getting checked out a lot.
Those books that only get bought for one branch? If they end up with a dozen holds on the next book, maybe the book after that they show up at both branches. Or they get leased as an express copy--another copy of the book that got sold!
So, by checking out a book from the library, you are telling the library that PEOPLE WANT TO READ THAT BOOK. Both branches, for example, get EVERY SINGLE Patricia Briggs book and Tamora Pierce book--because at neither branch will you EVER find all their books on the shelf.
Now, if everyone who checked out those books pirated them instead, the libraries would see that those books weren't being purchased. And then they only buy one copy next time. There are series on the shelves that are missing books. It happens.
So, libraries:
1) Give you free stuff.
2) By creating scarcity, deadlines, and "brand" loyalty, encourage you to buy stuff.
3) Buy stuff, and buy MORE of the stuff when you use a library.
1) Give you free stuff.
2) By creating scarcity, deadlines, and "brand" loyalty, encourage you to buy stuff.
3) Buy stuff, and buy MORE of the stuff when you use a library.
Pirating:
1) Gives you free stuff.
2) Provides no incentive whatever to ever pay for the stuff.
3) May or may not have ever had a legitimate purchaser in the chain.
1) Gives you free stuff.
2) Provides no incentive whatever to ever pay for the stuff.
3) May or may not have ever had a legitimate purchaser in the chain.
ADDENDUM 1: Yes, yes, there's the argument that some pirates buy the book--but now I refer you back to this Tweet from some time ago by @seananmcguire:
ADDENDUM 2: "But so-and-so said 'Here, pirate my book!'"--I'm well aware that SOME authors are totally okay with it. They're generally in the place where they can afford to be okay with it. So go ahead! Pirate that person's books! They said to! They're fine!
But don't turn around and tell such-and-such that because so-and-so said it's totally fine to pirate THEIR books, that makes it okay to pirate ALL books. That's not how this works. Just because Diner A lets kids eat free on Wednesday doesn't mean Diner B has to.
TL;DR: Libraries are very much to the benefit of the author, publisher, and reader, and incentivize the sale and purchase of books. Pirating only benefits one of these parties, and does not. Please consider all three when deciding where to get your books.
