gobasso wrote:
gobasso wrote:
I don't understand why the publishers feel threatened by lending e-books through the library. Public libraries have been lending for decades and it doesn't seem to have hurt publishers. Anybody have some incite into the publishers reasoning for not allowing libraries to lend?
Sorry, I obviously meant insight. Although, in this case incite might express my feelings more accurately.
The reason they do this is because they really are not quick to adapt to things and they are looking for ways to make the most out of each individual ebook. They can't see that ebooks have the potential for way more sales than DTBs and look for shortterm, rather than longterm gains. For the record, this is going on all over with stockholders having a much bigger say in things than customers.
They don't yet understand the ebook market and especially potential customers. They are enacting things they wish were possible in the hard copy world. This is exemplified in their vision of how retailers should be able to sell ebooks (set price, no variance) and the lack of flexibility that true ownership of a book entails. They have always hated that if I buy a dead tree book I can give it away or sell it when done with it, because I own it. They have no control over it once I buy it. With ebooks they view a book as being licensed to you, not owned by you.
Now, with libraries, they think in a real short-sighted way that they are just losing money all over the place. They try things like licensing ebooks for only 1 year of lending, whereas a hard copy book if taken care of could be lent for an indefinite period of time.
Again, they do not understand that in promoting libraries and library reading and lending, they are creating customers. Not everyone will buy books, but most will. And the adults that come in to borrow books, often bring in their kids and those kids become readers and book buyers, too. Libraries sometimes set up book reading clubs not just for adults but kids. And even booksellers do what libraries do-booksellers have always had seats near bookshelves and let customers browse and even read all day long. Because booksellers know they are creating good will and promoting reading, which leads to buying.
In their defense, I also think they are still in a growing period with all of this. There are so many older books people want to see as ebooks and "develpment" costs can be high, so they are under pressure to be making the same profits in a down economy while creating ebooks from current and past content.
They are also having to pay unexpected costs for things such as illustrations within ebooks that have different licensing concerns than printed illustrations. So, money is a real part of the equation. Again, it's shortterm rather than longterm thinking.
"I still believe in spite of everything that people are good at heart." Anne Frank.
