Comments on: Please take your hat off when you enter

By: Patricia

Patricia — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:45:00 +0000

Thank You Peter for your considered and respectful comments. Unlike Penguin US who seem to show no respect, or even consideration and certainly no entrepreneurial spirit. Every large publisher (NOT selling their ebooks to libraries) trots out the same unsubstantiated emotional rhetoric about why. I imagine the excellent small and mid sized exciting and forward thinking publishers who are selling their titles will be further delighted. It is definitely the case here in Australia&NZ where our Wheelers ePlatform is signing up libraries with large budgets every week.

By: Michael W. Perry

Michael W. Perry — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 20:05:02 +0000

These publishers seem as clueless as the early automakers who, it is said, still put buggy whip holders on their cars.

Success with a new technology means understanding its advantages. For ebooks, those are:

* Additional copies after the first are virtually free.

* Copies never wear out.

Think about that a bit and you’ll realize that means that the best business model is:

* Making ebooks as widely available as possible. Copies are free, so why not spread them around widely?

* Per use renting makes more sense than selling. Since that copy never wears out, you can rent it an unlimited number of times.

Penguin is getting is all wrong. Every willing library in the country should have every book in its list. That maximizes the market of potential renters. And no library should have to buy their titles. Instead a small fee should be accessed whenever an ebook is checked out or renewed.

The greater the distribution, the greater the number of rentals. The greater the number of rentals, the greater the income. Hoarding digital books, limiting access to them and treating them as if they had a shelf life, makes absolutely no sense.

By: copygirl

copygirl — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:33:39 +0000

“Shouldn’t publishers be working with libraries to reach disadvantaged kids, and bring them into the only future for books that counts?”

On behalf of independent booksellers everywhere, “OUCH.”

By: Iliad1954

Iliad1954 — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 04:18:07 +0000

When most e-books can be had for less than $10, why should I bother with the library? The electronic queue is too long anyway . . .

By: bowerbird

bowerbird — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:15:11 +0000

> In other words, communities
> subsidize publishers’ “doorstopper” books,
> while being forced to pay repeatedly for
> titles that are already financially successful.

this was always the case for the big publishers…

purchases by libraries across the country meant
that virtually every book they published enjoyed
a _built-in_ base minimum, from its very start…

and now those publishers have turned their backs
on libraries. they should be ashamed of themselves.
what they are doing is not simply a mere faux pas;
they have let their greed turn them into monsters.

libraries worldwide should stop buying _any_ books
from these bastards, neither e-books nor p-books…

-bowerbird