The Sword and Laser discussion

This is a bit of a rant. My library is part of a larger collective that all used to share their electronic copies. This was great - nearly always it was possible to get a copy of an ebook in a timely manner. This has apparently changed so that now it has become very hard to get copies of books that are more popular.

This has come to a head with Gideon the Ninth as the wait list for it through the collective for it is 23 weeks. So maybe I can get to it in July? Pity.

GtN is a Tor book. Tor’s owner Macmillan now embargoes ebooks, limiting it to one copy per library organization. Sometimes the organization is by city, by region, or by state.

It’s been a whole thing, predicated on the idea that libraries are cannibalizing sales.

It's an interesting theory. There's books I probably would have bought had they not been available in the library. It's nice to get it that easily, but no one owes me a free book. It's Macmillan's money so they can decide their business practice. We can also go elsewhere if it bothers us.

Gideon came out Sep 2019. I think the ebook embargo was four months, so it ended mid-January 2020. I don't know how long it takes for libraries to purchase additional copies, but the timing is poor for this S&L pick.

As of Nov 2019, the Macmillan ebook embargo is two months across all imprints, not just Tor. See https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...

Hi Steve, librarians are definitely feeling your pain on this one. There are some libraries that have decided not to buy MacMillan titles, Seattle being the biggest example, in protest to MacMillan's moves. If you live in one of these areas, your library's principled stand against being screwed by a publisher may adversely effect you. MacMillan's CEO just appeared at a library conference to try to smooth things over, but failed pretty utterly. They refuse to share their data, which means libraries can offer no counter-argument.

At the library where I work, we are also part of a large consortium for ebook purposes (through OverDrive, which you'd get through the Libby app) and this presents it's own problems on top of the MacMillan embargo. Gideon the Ninth, for example, costs the library $60 though it costs a person $15. If a library sees lots of demand for this title, they may decide that $60 is better spent on 4-5 hardcover copies than 1 copy of an ebook. Library copies of MacMillan titles also disappear after 24 months (though this hasn't happened yet for this title, it accounts for why library ebook Tor backlists don't always look great).

Anyway, I know you probably aren't in the mood to hear excuses, but maybe it helps to know that librarians are just as angry about how ebooks are circulated as you are.

This is also one of the downsides to doing recent books as picks - they're pricey to buy and if I'm spending $14 on an ebook I want to know it's something I'm very likely to enjoy. Really, I only buy new release books from authors whose work I've liked in the past and not even then, sometimes. For example, I'll buy Richard Kadreys' stuff on sight (I preorder it actually) but even though I like Scalzi's stuff a lot of times I feel it's just fine... but not something I need right away. And, frankly, knowing he cut a $3.4m deal a couple of years ago also makes me less inclined to give him as much money as soon as I can. I wait to the MM paperback releases. But even those are $10 now and, as I write this, I ask myself is $4 *really* that important to me (no, it's not). Sigh...

Seth wrote: "Hi Steve, librarians are definitely feeling your pain on this one. There are some libraries that have decided not to buy MacMillan titles, Seattle being the biggest example, in protest to MacMillan..."

I'm in Australia so I'm not sure of how it's affecting libraries here, but I have access to three library systems within 100 miles of me, and none of them have a copy. My closest library very rarely has S&L picks, so that didn't surprise me, but the lack of it in bigger systems did.

On a side note, the ONE time I borrowed an S&L book from my local library, it was stolen from the returns bin when I returned it, and so now I'm the only person to have borrowed that copy!

MacMillan CEO John Sargent at ALA Midwinter...

https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org...

MacMillan is holding firm for now.

Elizabeth wrote: "On a side note, the ONE time I borrowed an S&L book from my local library, it was stolen from the returns bin when I returned it, and so now I'm the only person to have borrowed that copy!"

Not doing that rep as “continent fulla criminals” any favors there. 😂

I appreciate the feedback, Seth. I did know about the brouhaha in library circles around ebooks. It's pretty awful and makes me want to avoid Tor and MacMillan books.

My town has a decent sized library, but a number of the surrounding towns' libraries are rather quaint in comparison. The library consortium pools the resources of 100 libraries in the state to share resources which is absolutely a good thing and I know that they're pushing back on the publishers. In the meantime, the readers suffer.

I'll admit that I'm library spoiled, if San Francisco Public doesn't have it, I can easily check 100s of other libraries in California, if they don't have it, the library will look nationally for me

Seth wrote: "Gideon the Ninth, for example, costs the library $60 though it costs a person $15. If a library sees lots of demand for this title, they may decide that $60 is better spent on 4-5 hardcover copies than 1 copy of an ebook."

Thanks Seth, it's always so interesting to hear from an insider about how things work.

Seth wrote: "Library copies of MacMillan titles also disappear after 24 months"
Does this mean they basically only allow libraries to rent their ebooks?

Lisa wrote: "Does this mean they basically only allow libraries to rent their ebooks?"

Well, we all only rent our ebooks, from the big vendors anyway. Unlike physical copies, we aren't purchasing the book, we're purchasing the right to read it on our device. You can't, for example, sell your ebook to your neighbor, or lend it to your friend even though you could do that with a physical book - that violates the terms of the lease.

The difference for libraries isn't that you're buying and libraries are leasing, it's just a difference in the price and the terms. Most electronic content libraries buy comes with some limit. Often its a set time, like two years, but a set checkout limit (20 or 24) isn't uncommon either. Like I said, the price is often 5 to 10 times higher too.

Lisa wrote: "Does this mean they basically only allow libraries to rent their ebooks?"

The publishers' rationale is that physical copies eventually fall apart or are damaged/lost/stolen and may need to be replaced with new physical copies, but digital files are indefinite, so they've pushed this artificial deterioration model on the libraries to make up for that. It's rather harsh though--a properly bound library hardcover can easily last longer than 2 years or two dozen checkouts if it's not abused heavily.