The only way Amazon gets me in the Kindle Store

eReaderIQ iconI just received an update from eReaderIQ.  This is a service that lets you know when there are new free books added to the Kindle store.  It will also tell you about price drops, and recent Kindlization of previously non Kindle titles, as well as an advance search feature for the Kindle store.  I don’t have a Kindle, and I don’t even like Amazon all that much, but I love this service.

Barnes and Noble logoWhen I was purchasing “dead tree” books, I got them from Barnes & Noble.  Strictly speaking, I usually got them from www.bn.com, but that’s still not Amazon.  They had a real store I could visit when I wanted truly instant gratification, and, when I only needed moderately quick gratification, B&N shipped faster without my having to pay extra for Prime Membership.

When I bought an ebook reader, I bought a Nook.  One of the big selling points was that it had some built-in flexibility.  I could use it for ebooks from the library, if I was willing to jump through some hoops (that process was fairly teeth-grinding the first time).  I could also get free books from Baen and Project Gutenberg, while still having the advantage of being able to shop for books in bed at midnight if I really didn’t feel like reading anything I had on hand.  (The local Barnes and Noble currently hands out a cheat-sheet with every Nook they sell that gives new Nook owners the handy-dandy instructions on how to borrow ebooks from the library and read them on their new Nook.  This is a win-win that Amazon just can’t match.)

But now I have an iPad, and it changes things.  An iPad is essentially vendor agnostic.  As long as “there’s an app for that”, it can be anything I want it to be.  Or, everything I want it to be.  It’s a Nook and an Overdrive Media Console and a Bluefire Reader and, occasionally, a Kindle.

eReaderIQ tells me when there is a new ebook available for free in the Kindle store.  Even if I absolutely hate the title, I absolutely love getting the information.  And, unfortunately for the state of my various TBR lists and piles, sometimes I find the title interesting enough to download.  I know this is a loss-leader for Amazon.  They hope that people will get the freebie and then buy other books by the same author.  If I want something that’s not free, I’ll either check the library, or, purchase from B&N, so it’s not working on me, but the concept is excellent.  And, it absolutely proves the point made by librarians that letting people read the actual work is what turns people on to getting more books, including buying more books!  The freebie is a teaser, and I’d be willing to bet that both Amazon and the authors who put their books up think it works for them in the long run.

Baen Books LogoBaen Books has a terrific explanation of this from their perspective, written by Eric Flint, who has also put his money where his mouth is as an author.  The Baen Free Library makes the first couple/three books in many of their most popular authors’ series (including Flint’s) available for free download.  They know that if a reader likes the first two or three books, they will feel compelled to read the rest of the series.  Think of it as a gateway drug.

Project Gutenberg logoBut it’s the service aspect of this that I keep thinking about.  As a service, this is absolutely fantastic.  Barnes and Noble does not seem to have anything to match it, or if they do, they are hiding it quite thoroughly.  Project Gutenberg even manages to do this, and they won’t make a profit on it, but Barnes & Noble can’t seem to manage it (neither can Google).  What’s up with that?

Can libraries do the same thing?  Just think about it for a second.  Send out an email to patrons of what the library added, today.  Just today.  Every single day.  And/or what the library placed on order today.  And/or all the ebooks added to the library’s ebook site.  There really isn’t any need to get fancy about this, eReaderIQ certainly doesn’t.  It’s the books, and it’s all the books. There’s no added text, there’s no filtering, just the publisher blurb and the cover picture.  If I don’t like the books, I can delete the email or ignore the twitterfeed.  This could be automated, and it would provide a daily reminder of what the library does that’s good for readers.  And it would be an automatic update to the library’s twitterfeed and Facebook page every day.  Think of the possibilities!

What should a platform fee buy, anyway?

There are so many things swirling about how libraries purchase ebooks, it’s hard to know where to begin. 

 The Kansas State Library and OverDrive are butting heads during the renegotiation of the Kansas contract for OverDrive access for public libraries in the state.  This is primarily about the platform, or access fee, not about the individual content purchases, which are separate and priced as purchased.  But without the platform, no library can access the content.

Steven Jobs introducing the iPadThere are a few issues up front.  This particular original contract was negotiated in 2006.  The Sony e-reader with e-ink had just been introduced.  The Kindle was one year away.  Steven Jobs probably hadn’t even dreamed his iPad dream yet.  Ebooks for iPhones were still two years away.  No one could have predicted the explosion in ebook adoption by the consumer public, let alone by libraries. 

But there is a reason that “may you live in interesting times” is a curse and not a blessing.  OverDrive has become the major supplier of ebooks and downloadable audio to public libraries.  Unfortunately for OverDrive, it is human nature for people to take shots at whoever is out in front, and in the public library digital market, they are it.  To add fuel to the proverbial fire, public libraries are facing the perfect storm of record-breaking usage, heart-rending budget cuts, and an ear-splitting clamor for the digital services that OverDrive represents, with no human, technical or monetary support in sight.  For many libraries, ebooks represent another “do more with less” scenario, just with a higher profile.

On top of all of this, platform fees are very strange beasts.  When a library subscribes to a database for a year, the database license fee includes both access and content.  When the subscription stops, the access stops.  It may be expensive, but the concept is relatively simple.  In the case of OverDrive, the content is paid for separately from the platform, or access, fee.  So what does the platform fee buy?

The platform fee buys access to the content for library patrons, it buys access to the purchasing site so libraries can license additional content, it buys reports so the libraries can figure out what to buy and what not to buy, and it buys customer support for both patrons and libraries,.  And that’s where the questions come in.  Is the library getting value for money?  It’s not about the content.  Each ebook and each downloadable audiobook is paid as it is purchased.

At my LPOW, I handled all the digital stuff.  All the selection, all the purchasing, all the contracts, all the reports.  I’m also a user, but I read way more ebooks on my iPad than I listen to audio on my iPod, mostly because my car is 6 years old but the sound system is too good to rip out and the add-on AUX port just isn’t all that, even though I did add one.  Enough said. 

Overdrive Media Console PicFor patrons, using the library’s OverDrive site is easier than using NetLibrary–way easier.  Not to mention, there’s an app for most devices.  But comparative ease of use is a really low bar to get over.  And in two years of working with it, I didn’t see much change to the website.  There was a tremendous proliferation in the number of compatible devices–but that can easily be said to be a business necessity for OverDrive.  If it didn’t natively support the Android and the iPad by this point, how many libraries would have “just said no” in the past 6 months?  And how many libraries have had to explain to patrons how to email PDF documents to themeselves to use Bluefire?  Also, making changes to the patron interface is very high-touch on the part of OverDrive, and libraries pay for that, whether it is a good thing or a bad thing.  On the one hand, the library does not have to do the set up or maintenance, which is good.  On the other hand, the library can’t do simple changes for itself, either, like changing the loan period, or creating special topic promotional selections for the holidays, which is not so good, and adds to the cost.  On the third hand, (and yes, I know I’ve created a extra-terrestrial here), usage is up, up, up.  Usage equals access equals bandwidth.  At my LPOW, we had more than tripled bandwidth for all of our internet usage in less than three years, and that cost money.  At the same institution, OverDrive is now used twice as much in one month as is was in three whole months when the service first started.  The additional bandwidth usage on their end has to get factored in somewhere.

New York Times Best Seller List PicAnother part of what the platform fee pays for is the platform that librarians use to send more money to OverDrive.  In other words, libraries pay for the right to spend more money.  The best thing that OverDrive could do would be to make it as easy as possible to spend more money.  But it isn’t all that easy, especially compared to the tools that we are used to using with print and AV vendors.  In fact, the purchasing process has gotten worse in the wake of the Harper Collins mess, because now Harper Collins titles must be searched and purchased separately.  But the purchasing side of the equation needs to be updated.  There are a lot of simple tools that could help this process, such as standing order plans for ebooks, and standing order plans for the 25 or 50 or 100 most popular authors, pre-publication availability, etc.  Or just an automatic plan to get anything that reaches the New York Times Bestseller List.  The tools we have available to get stuff available or upcoming on the print side needs to be replicated, because explaining to patrons is painful, as I wrote here not long ago.

Barnes and Noble NookThe other piece that libraries get is customer support.  Whether customer support is adequate or not is always in the eye of the beholder.  Ebook readers and iPads were the gift of this past holiday season.  The email I received from a colleague who had given her 95 year old mother a Nook and was requesting the loan period on ebooks be increased to 28 days because her mom couldn’t finish a book in less than that (and 28 days is the standard loan period for a print book at that library) told me that ereaders were in the hands of a population that no one expected.  Most libraries have limits to their ability to support the tech behind this revolution.  Between all of us at my LPOW, we could figure out a lot of things, but if a patron had a problem downloading to a Palm Treo, we were collectively out of experts, and we called OverDrive.  A smaller library would have a smaller pool of in-house users, experts and converts to draw on, but might need just as much customer support, and might have just as many, or more, patrons going directly to OverDrive. 

There has to be a better way to make this work.  Providing ebooks and other downloadable content is one the fastest growing services that public libraries provide.  As the price of ereaders continues to drop, as more and more people use smartphones instead of landlines, reading on a mobile device is going to penetrate even more of every library’s service population.  If we don’t get on this bus it will leave us behind. 

But it would be better if we drove the bus.  Or at least, had a chance at “backseat driving” this bus.  For other materials that libraries purchase, we have choices about where to spend our money.  There are two major book jobbers, not one.  And there are several in the next tier.  There are multiple vendors who provide AV material, who also must compete for the library business.  Only in the online spaces do we end up in the position where we have to negotiate for the “best one of one”.  Even if that “one” were very, very good, competition for our business would make it better for everyone–for the vendor, for the libraries, and for our patrons.

Why isn’t every book available as an ebook at the library?

I’m writing this to help librarians explain to patrons why every single ebook available in Amazon is not available at the library.

At my LPOW, I was the person who handled all the downloadable stuff.  I selected all the ebooks, all the downloadable audio, I looked for new sources, I monitored trends in the market.  I also answered patrons’ questions about why we didn’t always buy what they wanted.  I did that a lot.  Not because I didn’t want to buy what they asked for, but because what they asked for wasn’t available.

Background stuff here.  My LPOW is a medium-sized public library in Florida and reasonably well funded.  They have also developed a very nicely responsible kind of human-powered Patron Directed Acquisitions.  I received 20-60 requests per week for ebooks and downloadable audio.  Every selector received that many requests for whatever they selected, I just said “no” more than anyone else.  Not because I wanted to, not because the library couldn’t afford to purchase what was requested, but because the material wasn’t available in the library marketplace for various weird reasons that were harder and harder to explain to colleagues, let alone patrons.

The Harper Collins issue has had one good side effect.  It has raised consciousness among librarians about the fact that two of the big six publishers, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster, are not available in the library lending space at all as far as ebooks are concerned.  On the April 1 online NYT best seller list for Fiction, two of the top 15 are from St. Martin’s, a Macmillan imprint, and not available to libraries.  The non-fiction list has two titles from S&S, likewise not available to libraries.

However, as loud as the outcry has been about Harper Collins sudden change regarding libraries, at least they are still talking to us.  Macmillan and S&S are not at the table.  How many libraries would jump at the chance to make the bestsellers and backlist from those publishers available at the same deal that is condemned from Harper?

The issues with making ebooks available are much more complicated than a simple yes or no based on publisher, HC notwithstanding.  Some “big name” authors from publishers that do operate in the library space do not make their latest works available until after the title is off the hardcover bestseller list.  It’s an observable pattern, one that I saw over two years of purchasing.  James Patterson’s latest two books, Toys and Tick Tock, are not available to libraries.  His earlier books are available.  The same is true for other authors.

The explanation to patrons that even though they can see on Amazon or Barnes and Noble that an ebookis available for them to buy, but the library can’t buy it to lend to them, can be a hard sell.  After all, libraries buy books and lend them to patrons all the time, why shouldn’t it be the same with ebooks?  At least from the patron’s point of view.

This all comes back to the belief that library lending costs publishers in their bottom line.  I’ve seen various statistics, all sliced and diced depending on who is trying to make which argument.  Libraries create readers.  Libraries hand-sell.  Libraries bring audiences to books and authors, especially new and mid-list authors.  Publishers want to talk about the bestsellers, and libraries want to talk about the totality.  This is an apples and oranges argument.

And no one brings up audio.  According to the statistics I’ve seen, libraries are the big market for unabridged audio.  Hasn’t anyone noticed that Harper Collins didn’t reduce the lending limit on their downloadable audio?

There are other issues surrounding the whole process of libraries making ebooks available to patrons.  The process with print books is pretty much worked out.  Libraries are able to order three months or more pre-publication, and users expect that a new book will be in the catalog three months or so before it comes out, and people who want to read it first (or second, or twenty third) place holds on it.  Three months out, it’s usually pretty certain that a print book is actually going to get published and be available.  Not 100%, but reasonably so.

Ebooks don’t work that way.  I couldn’t order three months ahead, even if I knew something was coming out, and I was reasonably certain it would be available.  A few things might be available pre-pub a week, or occasionally a little longer.  But, even though I could be almost certain that a given author’s ebook would be available on the print release date (J.D. Robb or Jonathan Kellerman), I had no way of being 100% certain, or ordering the title and making it available for holds.  There are no automatic order plans for ebooks the way there are for print books, or even for downloadable audio.  I had to wait, and so did the public.  I also had to explain.  And saying I know but I don’t know, or I’m pretty sure but not absolute sure, or I think so but our suppliers won’t tell us until the release date, makes the library look stupid by not getting a new supplier.  Except, of course, there is a paucity of suppliers for popular content in the library market space.

So, it’s not just the usability issues.  The end-user side is getting better, although it still has a way to go.  But the back-end functionality, and the issues surrounding it, and explaining them, to end users and to colleagues, is downright painful.

Free books vs carrying charges

I am a Librarian.  And I have not bought a book in over 10 months.  I almost feel like I’m confessing something here.

When I travel, my entire carry-on used to hold books.  And I usually bought more while I was on the trip.  But, I bought an eBook Reader (a Nook) over a year ago.  I started taking it instead of the little suitcase.  My husband was so happy!  (He usually ended up pulling my little suitcase of books at some point on each trip)

This Xmas, I got an iPad.  Even better.  Now I don’t carry my Netbook or any books.  (I lie.  I carry one paperback for those moments on the airplane when they say “Turn off all electronic devices.”  So annoying.)

At the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Conference in January, there were free books available on the conference floor.  I could have picked up several.  Lots.  I always have before.  I didn’t pick up any.  I would have had to carry them.  It just wasn’t worth it.