Thread by @kidsilkhaze

So here's the thing--I am worried that publishing is killing libraries, and that will, in turn, kill publishing.

Library budgets are shrinking, or not growing at the rate of costs. A lot of these cuts are being felt in materials budgets--nudging up your holds ratio is less noticeable to users than cutting hours, and less damaging to staff morale than layoffs.

(Holds ratios are how many holds we allow ourselves to have per copy of an item, once we have more holds than that, we buy more copies to meet demand. You're not imagining things--wait times probably are getting longer at your library. This is why.)

At the same time, materials costs are skyrocketing because we have to buy e-materials. People want and use ebooks. If we don't have them, we lose our users. We become as obsolete as out-of-touch op-ed writers imagine us to be.

(Yes, we provide way more than books, but in the end, materials are why the majority of users come in in the majority of the time, and it's our niche. A lot of our other popular services are duplicated by other places and agencies.)

So, here's the thing-- e-materials are EXPENSIVE for libraries. Print materials are not. We get substantial discounts from our vendors for print materials. Often bigger than the discounts you're getting from Amazon.

Ebooks aren't discounted. We're lucky if we can get them for full-list price. Even then, we usually have to buy them after a year or two, or after a certain number of checkouts.

Here are cold, hard numbers:
Penguin Random House usually charges $55/ copy of an ebook, and they need to be repurchased every 24 months.
Simon and Schuster usually charges list price, and they need to be repurchased every 12 months

HarperCollins usually charges list price and they need to repurchased every 26 checkouts.
Hachette charges $80-$90 (!!!) BUT, they never need to be repurchased.

Macmillan charges $60/copy and they need to be repurchased every 52 checkouts of 24 months, whichever comes first.
(Assuming a standard checkout period of 3 weeks, and the book is ALWAYS checked out for 2 full years, you still only get 35 checkouts.)

It's not uncommon to be able to buy 5+ copies of a Macmillan or Penguin/Random House book for the same price as 1 ebook. And a few of those 5 print copies will last long beyond the time limits imposed on the ecopies.

And now we're seeing more and more exclusivity deals with certain publishers. Amazon imprints (including Audible) will not sell ecopies to libraries. If you're with Lake Union or Audible published your audio book, libraries can get it in paper or CD, but not eform.

I just learned today that Scribd will now be publishing exclusives by some big name authors. Will they ever be available to libraries? Who knows.

Tor has embargoed most of their titles so libraries can't buy ecopies until 4 months after publication, we can't even preorder them, which means we have to go back and look at their ebooks 6+ months after we purchased the physical copy (I tend to preorder 2-3 months in advance)

AND THEN! After we waited so long, it's Macmillan pricing ($60 every 24 months). So... basically they've priced/policied themselves out of the market, except for the most blockbuster titles that we HAVE to buy because of user demand.

This model of ebooks is NOT sustainable for all but the richest libraries. We lost the depth and breadth of collection that makes us special. Users stop seeing us as useful, funding gets cut more, the problem compounds.

See @SuperWendy section at the end of this blog post for numbers on how popular ebooks are, and how much use they get.

It's this vicious cycle--publishing charges prices we can't afford, users get turned off, our budgets shrink more due to lack of support, we can afford even less, users get turned off more, our budget shrinks again... rinse and repeat.

But without libraries, publishing loses a MAJOR player and customer. They lose a lot of money. AND THEN EVERYONE HAS LOST.

There HAS to be a way for libraries, authors, and publishers to work together to find better models that are sustainable to everyone's bottom line, otherwise we're all doomed.

(My mother and mother-in-law were both lamenting long library wait times and assumed their libraries were out-of-touch with user desires. I can't blame them-- that's the logical assumption to make from a user's point-of-view and experience.)

Publishers charge unaffordable prices, and the libraries get blamed.

(Also, I forgot to link to the blog post discussed above--it's in the mentions, but posting here so it's in the thread--pinkheartsociety.com/single-post/Ap…)

Hey all, my mentions are way busier than I'm used to and I know I'm missing stuff. I don't have a soundcloud, but support your library by using it and advocating for it in your community!

Also, if you like library ebooks, don't feel bad! Still read them! Just be understanding when there's a long wait time or the library doesn't have the one you want.

A few recurring questions in my mentions that I'll try to generally address in the next few tweets:

Publishers make us rebuy ebooks because we rebuy print. Ebooks can't get lost eaten by the dog, or read so many times the pages start falling out. We rebuy when that happens in print, if demand is still there.

BUT! When we rebuy in print, it is so much less expensive!

Also, we do buy indie authors in small presses IF their books are available (that's sometimes a big if.) While (usually) not as egregious as some of the big guys, indie and small press titles are usually more expensive in e than print, and sometimes need to be repurchased.

But, this thread is about how the big guys are making libraries slip into irrelevance. The big guys control most of the market (Because they're big!) so they also publish most of what our users are looking for. We can't stop buying the big guys and only buy small/indies.

(Additionally, ebooks are much harder to browse than stacks, so users are less likely the stumble across a smaller gem like they do in the stacks. With ebooks, they're often looking for a specific title or author)

When budgets get cut, we have to focus our dollars on the sure bets that we know will get a lot of use, that we know our users really want us to have, which means less money for the smaller authors and titles (which includes small press, indie, and big house midlist).

I am touched by all the donation offers, but ebook donations are incredibly hard/impossible to accept, because libraries use a third-party vendor (like OverDrive) to provide our esources, because they have the platform to handle checking the books out, etc.

AND! While donation offers warm my heart, that is also not a sustainable model--creators deserve (And need!) to get paid. We need to find a way to make this system work for all creators, publishers, libraries, and readers.

I want to update this to point out multiple publishers have changed their terms, so the numbers I quoted above are no longer accurate.

Hachette has moved away from perpetual use to a 2-year term. They dropped prices, but they’re still $50-60, so very very pricey. Simon and Schuster is going from a 1-year to a 2-year license, but prices are doubling (so, that one washes out the same)

Another huge change is eaudio—those were almost universally perpetual use, but they’re starting to be metered and ugh ugh ugh

This latest move by Macmillan is BAD
publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/in…

It's not unexpected--after learning how successful the Tor embargo was, we all saw it coming. A cheap perpetual license is a nice gesture, but the restrictions surrounding it are ridiculous and impractical.

Want to make sure patrons feel the library is out-of-touch? Only have 1 copy with a miles-long holds list. And then 8 weeks later, buy more copies at a price point that will bankrupt you. That makes sense.

But the worst part of this? Macmillan BLAMING LIBRARIES FOR DEPRESSING SALES. Publishing hates libraries and there it is, right there. No one tell them how many print books get checked out.

This is all their imprints. This is Tor. This is St. Martins. This is FSG. This is Flat Iron. This is Henry Holt. And on and on.

This is such a giant slap in the face, I can't even. A lot of libraries just don't buy Macmillan ebooks because their pricing is so egregiously bad (the worst of the Big 5) and they just made it so much worse.

Instead of looking at the control Amazon has in the ebook market, instead of looking at how libraries can't afford to buy your ebooks anyway so people are pirating them, just tell authors it's all the BIG BAD LIBRARY'S fault. Sure.

I'm in a webinar right now that says 42% of Americans want libraries to offer more digital content. WE ARE TRYING. WE ARE TRYING SO HARD.

I've started a separate thread to look at public vs library pricing for specific titles:

https://twitter.com/kidsilkhaze/status/1154440923851493376

Something not in the PW article—after 12 months, Macmillan titles go down to $40 for 24 month access. It’s not great, but it’s something.

Macmillan is specifically hoping that long wait times will make people go out and buy the ebook.

As @aswatki1 pointed out, Macmillan wants library users to stop using the library.

Let’s follow this to its conclusion—people stop using us, we lose funding, we close.

Then only people who can afford to buy books get to read.

Only people with access to a brick and mortar store get to browse and discover smaller titles.

But really, in the end, Macmillan thinks poor people don’t deserve to read books.