TL;DR
1. I
want to help authors get their ebooks into libraries.
2. I
want to help libraries acquire indie ebooks.
4. I
want to sell your ebooks to libraries.
What's going on with
libraries and ebooks?
There
are 120,000 libraries in the US. These libraries, and their patrons, are eager for popular ebooks. Many libraries have a budget they must spend, or they risk having that budget cut.
Currently,
libraries have no allies in the ebook market. They aren't happy with the
restrictions and costs of the current leader in supplying libraries with ebook
content, Overdrive. Through Overdrive, many publishers charge high prices for
ebooks, some higher than $80 a title. They also require yearly
license renewals, and may force libraries to re-buy licenses after a certain
arbitrary number of borrows.
Just
one example of the perils of this approach for America’s libraries is that a library must pay
for extensions of time-limited licenses of old ebooks and purchases of
licenses for new ones. All kinds of sustainability and predictability issues arise.
And that’s
true even if the budget remains the same, rather than declining, as many have
in recent years. It will be harder than ever for libraries to grow their
collection, whether the licenses are time-limited or come with limits on the
number of times a library can loan a book.
So libraries are
spending a fortune and don't even own the content they're spending that fortune
on. In many cases, if they stop paying the fees, they lose the content they
bought. This has been dubbed "digital decay", and it's a money grab,
pure and simple.
What's going on with
indie authors and ebooks?
Some indies are on
Overdrive and 3M. I've been on Overdrive for a few years. My last quarterly
check was about $60, and I have a large catalog. This is small money, not just
for me, but for any writer. And I was fortunate enough to have been invited
into Overdrive. Many authors are not.
The vast majority of
libraries don't have access to many of the ebooks that readers are seeking. The
latest AuthorEarnings.com report showed that 33% of all ebooks sold on Amazon are from indie authors.
Libraries are missing out on 1/3 of available titles, because they have no way
easy way to acquire them.
Just as important,
these are quality titles. People are reading, enjoying, and recommending them.
Indie authors are hooking readers, and selling as well as the major publishing
houses, but there isn't a way for libraries to offer them to their patrons.
This is unfortunate for
patrons, and libraries, and indie authors, who are all missing out.
For
the past year, my business partner, August Wainwright, and I have been talking
to acquisitions librarians across the country, and they crave an alternative to
the status quo. These libraries are looking to buy thousands of ebooks at once
in order to best serve their patrons and community.
Their
main wish is to be treated fairly - which means they want to own the ebooks
they purchase, acquire good content at a reasonable price, and have access to
as many copies as they need.
Our
solution? Give libraries what they're asking for, and in a way that gives
libraries the sustainable purchasing model they deserve. We're striving to
offer a large, curated collection of popular ebooks that libraries can easily
purchase with just one click.
We currently have just
under 1000 ebooks in our collection, with more being added daily.
And we want to include
your titles as well.
I'm a writer, and I'm
already on a lot of platforms. Why should I sell my ebooks through EAF?
EbooksAreForever
distributes to libraries at $7.99 for full length novels, and $3.99-$4.99 for
shorter works. We're offering 70% royalties to the author, and the library will
have the ability to purchase more copies as needed.
The
way this works is that if a library wants to allow 3 patrons to borrow your
ebook at any given time, they’d need to have purchased 3 “copies”. Most
libraries adhere to a strict hold ratio (usually around 3:1) in order to
present patrons with the best user experience possible. Our hope is that by
making ebooks both affordable and sustainable, then libraries in response will
automatically purchase more copies.
So, if you have a catalog of 10 ebooks that we then distribute
to 1000 libraries, you've just earned $56,000 in royalties from making
your books available to the library marketplace if they each buy one copy. If your titles are popular, they'll buy more copies and you'll earn more.
I heard about EAF over
a year ago. What have you been doing all this time?
Listening and learning.
EbooksAreForever.com is trying to serve three groups: Authors & Publishers,
Libraries, and Library Patrons.
Each requires special consideration
to ensure the best overall experience possible.
Currently, there is no
killer app in the library market. Every library, library system, or consortium,
has to reinvent the wheel in order to offer ebooks to its patrons. With no
standardization in the library market, and the few companies and publishers who
offer ebooks to libraries doing so in such a one-sided, money-grabbing manner,
libraries have been getting squeezed without getting fair and
sustainable value when it comes to content.
We needed to figure out
what libraries were looking for, as well as what features authors and
publishers would love to see, and how to best provide them with that.
A large part of this
involved bringing on multiple partners to help make the EbooksAreForver.com website as robust and useable as possible,
while implementing a fully RESTful API.
What's an API and why
should I care?
The easiest way to conceptualize what an
API does is to think of an interaction between two separate pieces of software
without needing a human element.
EbooksAreForever wants libraries who
purchase ebooks in our collection to eventually integrate access to those
titles in as many places as possible; most importantly, their own ILS (catalog
system).
Some libraries have their own custom
ILS, others use third-party services of which there are many. You can see here that in Texas, there are about 20 different
ILS systems being used. Without an API, we'd have to go one by one to help each
library integrate our books into their catalogs. Think copy and pasting times a
million. With an API, each service could integrate our catalog by following a
simple set of standardized rules.
Another way to think
about it would be to look at the connections on the back of a TV. That panel on
the TV with all the coax/hdmi/usb/fiber/rca connections are in a way your TV's
API. It allows other appliances (Cable boxes, DVD players, video game
consoles...) to interact with your TV.
The reason you should
care about this is because it allows EAF and our service to act in the exact
manner in which libraries desire. One of our goals is to meet the demands of
the ReadersFirst
organization, which is made up of nearly 300 libraries that
represent more than 200 million readers in the US and Canada. These principles,
and in turn our API, are about openness and ease of use, all of which provide
libraries and their patrons with the best user experience possible.
If all libraries are
using various third parties to license overpriced and decaying digital content
to them, how does EAF plan to interface with them? Aren't libraries tired of
new companies vying for their acquisitions dollars?
What we've been doing
the past year is only offering our collection to a few beta testing libraries that
use Adobe Content Server. It's an expensive, ongoing cost, and many libraries
can't afford it, or won't even bother with it for various reasons.
With the API in place,
we can deal directly with libraries, library systems, and consortium, without
Adobe—though we can also interface with libraries who prefer to keep Adobe.
I'm not sure I
understand…
Having an ebook file
isn't enough. Libraries also need ways to catalog ebooks, store ebooks, and
provide ebook access to patrons.
EAF has been developing
ways to do that, for all libraries, in a way that doesn't fleece them.
Where are you at right
now?
We're at the stage
where we need more content. Offering a better service to libraries is only part
of the equation; we also want to offer them content that no other company can.
Indie
content.
We're the only company
fully opening up to indie authors, and we're paying the same rate Amazon does.
Right now, we're
working with a select group of partner libraries. We've been dealing
exclusively with that initial group, but now we’re adding another selection of
libraries who will be joining in the next two weeks. They've weighed in and
have helped us build the platform they actually want. Our full launch date is
tentatively set for later this spring/early summer. When that happens, we'll
begin distribution to ALL public libraries, be it individually, whole library
systems, and consortium groups, through both our web platform, as well as
patron reader apps.
What are these “consortium”
you speak of?
A library consortium is
really any local, statewide, or regional
cooperative group of libraries that provides and helps with the
effective coordination of the libraries they count as members. Their main focus
is usually built around improving services to the clientele of libraries within
the given consortium (group).
When
large publishers were faced with the advent of ebooks, instead of trying to
come up with viable models that worked in libraries, they applied the same
structures that they used for paper. Some say they deliberately crimped
libraries. And in much the same way, many large publishers, distributors, and
services have refused to adequately work with consortia.
EAF
is not among that group. Although we understand the need to come up with
different models for different sections of the marketplace, it is our mission
to find solutions where others have fallen back on insufficient ways of doing
business.
Joe, you're an author.
Are you sure you want to give libraries a copy of an ebook that will last
forever? Doesn't that put a cap on a title's earning potential?
It may seem that way,
but we have future plans. Currently, libraries can buy multiple copies of
titles for simultaneous uses.
Soon we plan to offer
libraries unlimited uses if they pay slightly more.
That sounds even worse
for the author!
Depending on EAF's
ability to saturate the library market, it will be a long while before
we run out of libraries to distribute content to. An author selling one title
to 5000 libraries earns $28k, which is well above the average advance that
legacy publishing offers. Sell four titles, and that author is making six
figures in a new market that wasn't previously open to them.
It’s important to
understand that EAF is intended to be a complimentary service. Much in the same
way that it used to be common for translations and foreign sales to be a part
of an author's subsidiary earnings, we want library sales to be available to
indies. Libraries spend billions of dollars annually acquiring content. But
they likely don't have your content.
Yet.
Don't library sales
hurt sales on other platforms?
That's a common
assumption, but we haven't found any evidence or data to back it up. The library
market has always existed, just like the used book market.
In fact, according to
some of the latest research, library patrons who borrow ebooks go on to purchase 3.2
additional books per month, and a majority (57%) would consider buying ebooks
found on a library website.
The reality is that
readers who are loyal to the ebooks available at their local library may have
never had a chance of discovering your titles. What we’re talking about here is
an entirely new group or readers that has previously been unreachable.
If I sell my titles
through eBooksAreForever, do I still own my rights?
Yes. And you can opt
out at any time for any reason, though all sales are final. Meaning, if you
sell a title to a library, they keep that title.
Can I sell my ebooks
for more than the stated price?
During the current beta
period, we are keeping all prices for novels set to a pre-established level.
However, as we move out
of the beta period and expand our offerings, we will be looking at different
pricing structures. It is of great important to us that we create a sustainable
platform for both libraries, as well as for publishers & authors.
I’m already
distributing my titles on Overdrive. Will selling through EAF affect my
account?
Distributing your
titles through Overdrive won’t affect your ability to also distribute through
eBooksAreForever. However, libraries will most likely not re-purchase titles if
they have already licensed them through Overdrive. We are actively working to
persuade libraries to purchase titles - and keep them forever - through our
service, instead of continually licensing ebooks at higher prices from other
services. This would help library budgets go further.
Is exclusivity ever
required to join eBooksAreForever?
No exclusivity is ever
required.
And, since we’re still
in a beta period, our advice would be to continue to distribute through other
library specific channels, if you have access to them. As we grow, we believe
our pricing model will earn authors far more royalties, even with fewer overall
sales, when compared to any of the other market competitors. But even after we
demonstrate that to be true, we will still never require exclusivity.
I'm an author. How do I
submit my titles to EbooksAreForever? Do you have any requirements?
At this point, EAF
provides libraries with vetted content. We want to offer great books by great
writers, so we're reviewing works on a case-by-case basis. If you'd like us to consider your books, you can sign up for an Author Account here.
We aren't currently
accepting erotica, but we will be soon.
If I'm accepted, what
next?
I'm an agent who
represents indie authors and want to know more.
Contact Joe at joekonrath@comcast.net.
We'll set up a call.
I'm a publisher and
want to know more.
Contact Joe at joekonrath@comcast.net.
We'll set up a call.
On my blog, I've
repeatedly called independent ebooks a shadow industry. This shadow industry
hasn't been able to effectively mesh with the library industry.
We're working to change
that. And we'd like you to join us.