A Librarian’s Guide to the (Most Current) Ebook Problem

If you like ebooks and you’re a writer or publisher, or even just a reader, and your drug of choice is science fiction and fantasy, chances are you’ve heard of Macmillan’s TOR experiment. If you haven’t, let me catch you up on the news.

Back in June 2018, Macmillan decided to embargo ebook lending uses of TOR titles. This meant that on a book’s release date, the ebook would not be available for purchase by libraries. Instead, starting in July 2018, librarians could buy the print version, as usual, but had to wait four months to purchase the same title as an ebook. Macmillan was afraid ebook sales were hurting its bottom line.

Four months. That’s a long time to wait for an ebook.

That’s the short version. Sadly enough, Macmillan concluded this experiment had been a success — and that they planned to continue it. So from now on, libraries will not be able to buy Macmillan ebooks on their title release dates.

No matter what Macmillan says or how they spin their new embargo on ebook purchasing for libraries, the only people they’re going to hurt are librarians and people who usually find their first or favorite reads in libraries. Honestly, this embargo is just the latest barrier that publishing houses have thrown at libraries.

In the beginning, say, 2008 to 2012, some publishers just did not make ebooks available to libraries at all. Amazon wouldn’t partner with any portal service until it figured out how to drive patrons to its site (and track what titles they checked out). HarperCollins introduced metered access in 2011. Simon & Schuster, Penguin, and Macmillan weren’t even on the ebook lending train until 2013 or 2014 (I forget the exact date, but it just hasn’t been very long). And somewhere in there, Hachette Book Group pulled all of its perpetual use titles, then reoffered them through metered access.

You can imagine it might be a little frustrating — and sad! — to tell a patron that we don’t own a particular title and why. As a librarian, I hate to disappoint people. Every library I’ve ever worked at makes sure new titles are out on their release dates. We advertise title release dates, too, so our patrons can request their favorites. This builds trust between the community and the library. On a cellular level, so to speak, every book, every checkout, is marketing for the library mission.

When I don’t have a book, a service, or something that everyone else has, it makes the library look bad. If we’re not able to buy more copies of an ebook, my patrons aren’t going to get mad at Macmillan, but I will tell them who deserves their ire. We are at the mercy of the publishing houses, and they determine the access schemes for ebooks.

Many librarians have told off Macmillan, not the least of whom is Jessamyn West, the American Library Association, the King County Library system (one of the largest lending systems in the country), and more.

Patrons expect certain titles to be available in the majority of libraries. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds. Steven Hawkings’s A Brief History of Time. Willa Cather’s My Antonia. And they expect to find the newest big thing — Delia Owens’ Where The Crawdads Sing, for example. (YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK.)

These are reasonable expectations. But libraries’ ability to lend ebooks meets all kinds of obstacles (that we did not put there).

In addition to the very abbreviated history of ebook lending up top, let’s talk costs. Ebooks don’t always cost the same to libraries as they do to individuals. There are exceptions; it depends on the service a library engages to bring ebooks to its community.

Here are some examples of the prices I, as a librarian, would pay for an ebook in a variety of formats (e.g., Kindle, Adobe, read-online). I’ve organized them by declining price, because I’m a librarian and I like to organize stuff; it’s not a comment on the quality of x book. (I’ll say it louder for the people in the back: Read whatever you want, we don’t care.)

So. Pricing. This mileage may vary, dependent on the download service and its pay scheme. But the following represents current pricing for our library:

$76, one copy one user/perpetual use:

• Samantha Shannon, Priory of the Orange Tree

$65 for 24 months metered access:

• James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes
• Aimee Semple, Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

$55 for 24 months metered access:

• Ted Chiang, Exhalation
• Patricia Briggs, Storm Cursed

$13.99 for 26 checkouts:

• Robyn Carr, View from Alameda Island

$12.95, one copy one user/perpetual use:

• George Orwell, 1984

BUT WAIT, you say. What’s all this “one copy one user” or “metered access” or “26 checkouts?”

That’s right. To my knowledge, these are terms of access set by the publishers when ebook lending first became a thing. Remember that abbreviated history.

Metered access means a title is licensed to be checked out to one person at a time, but unlike a hardback or audiobook on disc, the library doesn’t own the title forever (or, at least, “until damage do us part”). That title will disappear from the library’s offerings after a certain amount of time (1 or 2 years) and/or a certain number of checkouts (26 or 52). If it’s a popular title, the library has to pay X amount of money to repurchase the lending license.

One copy one user/perpetual use titles never expire. But they can often be prohibitively expensive, especially for smaller library locations. So we have to be very careful about what we buy. Budgets only stretch so far.

There are also cost-per-use plans, and also simultaneous use plans. Simultaneous use plans are offered by specific publishers, and these plans usually cost extra on top of the ebook portal service. And different portal services offer different titles, pay schemes, etc. What all of this means is that I’m not paying for the library to own an ebook. Ebooks aren’t permanent. Certainly not for libraries. I pay for uses of the ebook.

Each library uses a kind of simple formula — user-to-copy ratio — to determine demand for a particular title. At my library we get reports every week to see if we need to buy extra copies of this or that. (Here I am talking about print titles, but the same logic applies to ebook titles.) When you break down the price by user, it averages to .50 cents or maybe a dollar per use. But the initial cost can be, as we have seen, rather high. And buying an ebook is no guarantee it will reach 26 checkouts. Or 52.

For the record, I have never in my library career heard of a publisher limiting the number of print books a library can buy and keep on its shelves.

I want to get across how difficult it is for a library to offer ebooks in the first place. If I buy a print hardback, I’m buying its shelf life. (For better or for worse.) Once its newness wears off, it’s still there, waiting to be discovered and read. Once the newness of a metered access title wears off, I might not be able to buy it again. Again, budgets only stretch so far, and they can change. My purchasing budget is not guaranteed to be the same from year to year.

I understand Macmillan and TOR’s experiment. I do. I’m a librarian, but I also want writers to get paid. Honestly, most librarians want writers to get paid. We love reading, and we love telling people what we’re reading. There is no better feeling in the world than hearing “I loved it!” from a patron who now shares the same feelings about a book that we do. I also want publishers to be able to keep making and selling books.

But I’m not sure what’s going on here, except downright publisher greed. What I’m at war with are all the obstacles the publishers set for library ebook lending. The publishers, of course, don’t take the heat. We do. Libraries are the places people come to find out about books, and to read stories in their preferred format. Our library has ebooks, audiobooks on disc, downloadable audiobooks, large print, and regular print books. Because we like to accommodate as many people as possible in discovering the joy of stories — or finding information they didn’t know they needed until they visit the library.

I’m very certain that I, in my limited experience, have not hit upon every nuance of the Macmillan embargo issue, or even all of the obstacles. But if you were a publisher, and you wanted to make sure people hear about or read your book, then you should be embracing libraries, not working against them. Ebooks have many fantastic characteristics, and we should be able to offer them on their release dates, just like print books — and, yes, preferably without paying an arm and a leg for each of them.