Not making it easy

[babaca]

As if it wasn't already hard to find good ebooks on Overdrive...

AP reporting:

Penguin halts e-books sales to libraries
Associated Press – 16 hrs ago


NEW YORK (AP) — Penguin Group (USA), which publishes such best-sellers as Kathryn Stockett's "The Help" and "Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love," has stopped selling e-books to libraries.

Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and the Hachette Book Group are among the major publishers that already limit e-book availability to libraries. While more and more smaller publishers are providing e-books to libraries, larger publishers have been concerned that the ease of downloading books from libraries could hurt sales.

Penguin announced Thursday it would stop selling e-books to libraries through OverDrive Inc., a Cleveland-based digital distributor and major supplier for the library market. The publisher added that it was talking with a "number of partners" about possible future arrangements. OverDrive CEO Steve Potash said he was still "actively working" with Penguin about how to address their concerns.

Comments

[haikitteh]

Silly publishers.

Lending ebooks is no different than lending paper books. If they're that scared of losing sales, they should stop selling paper books to libraries, too. Many more people borrow paper books than ebooks at this point.

Penguin, OverDrive and Amazon

[dorothy1901]

Apparently, it's not the lending arrangement per se to which Penguin objects; it's the part that Amazon plays. See here: For Penguin, that issue was OverDrive's relationship with Amazon. A 2011 arrangement made library lending possible on the Kindle. Publishers have objected to the library loans being executed through Amazon's servers -- imagine walking into your public library then finding yourself at the Target checkout counter.

[stormcloude]

I really don't like the overdrive lending model. There's no mechanism for people to donate ebooks to their library and libraries are limited to what overdrive allows them access to. It's pretty frustrating.