Posts tagged publishing

Been thinking more about HarperCollins’ goofy plan to make libraries re-license ebooks after 26 loans.

Okay, maybe “abject toads” was a little harsh. But still, it makes me crazy when companies go out of their way to cripple the fruits of a new technology, desperate to chain it down to the limitations of the past, simply because they already know how to charge money for the past and can’t be bothered to come up with a way to make money on the future.

And they do this at their peril, ignoring the fact that those who do figure out how to make money on the future are those who always win.

Clearly the model of a new license every 26 loans is ridiculous. At least it is ridiculous if the reason is that “it’s the way paper works.”

Can HarperCollins honestly not think of any other way to make money and stay in business while publishing ebooks?

Here’s a wild idea, using a term that’s been bounced around a lot lately: A subscription model. Let a library buy an annual subscription to HarperCollins ebooks. One annual fee could let the library initiate as many loans as they like over the course of a year. The publisher could set tiers based on total number of patrons served by the library overall, or tiers based on the number of distinct titles that can be accessed during the year. (That’s distinct titles, not individual loans.)

Maybe this is a terrible idea. Surely there are details I haven’t thought through. But the point is that a model like this, or a better one devised by someone smarter than me, would take advantage of those ways in which ebooks are superior to paper books. Cost-free and frictionless duplication and distribution means that libraries can avoid some of their biggest planning headaches — deciding exactly what titles to stock months ahead of time,  deciding how many copies to buy, waiting for a truck to deliver them, and making sure there’s enough shelf space to keep them. And publishers can benefit from steady revenue rather than hoping for an annual blockbuster.