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From the President's Desk
February 2012

No eBooks in Libraries is A License to Steal (Books)

When it comes to public library use of eBooks, we writers are in a pickle. We are insatiable readers, every one of us. We love libraries. Yet the publishers who midwife our books seem poised to kill off, or else severely limit, eBook lending in our nation's public libraries.

If there is one certainty in book publishing today, it's that publishers feel like the guy in the movie sword fight: back against the wall and myriad contenders taking cuts at him. Publishers are worried about staying alive.

Unfortunately, desperation doesn't encourage thoughtful decision-making.

In a 2010 study of three devices, the iPad, Kindle and Sony reader, some 40 percent of users said they're reading more than before, and 55 percent predicted they would read even more in future.

Amazon is Scrooge-ish with sales data, but a 2010 Wall Street Journal article said customers with a Kindle buy 3.3 times as many books. Mid-year in 2010, the American Publishers Association reported that eBook sales has gone up 1039 percent since 2008. Quadruple digits. Expect the next sales statistic to startle even more.

This isn't mere good news for we who write, chickadees. Assuming we will get eBook royalties, a topic for another day, eBooks are our lifeline to the future. Remember the 2007 National Endowment for the Arts study, which said Americans were reading less? Half of those 18-24 years old said they never read books for pleasure.

Devices and eBooks have got us excited about reading again! It's been a little over four years since Amazon launched the Kindle, and then, eBooks under $10. Seems longer, doesn't it? Those moves crowned Amazon the market leader.

Toward the latter part of 2011, Amazon again threw gasoline on digital bonfires. In September, it announced that Kindle users could get library books on their devices, something the Barnes & Noble Nook and Sony reader already were doing. In November came "Amazon Prime." For $79 per year, Kindle owners can get one book a month "free."

Some 67 percent of the nation's public libraries now lend eBooks, according to the American Library Association. Once people could read library eBooks on their Kindles, demand for the books surged. In late November, Penguin, one of the "big six" publishers, abruptly pulled its eBooks from America's libraries.

The publisher said it feared having eBooks in libraries would lead to book piracy. Not stated: the same concern present when paper books are sold to libraries. Lost sales. eBooks don't wear out. Library patrons don't drop pizza on them, or permanently underline passages.

Two of the "big six," McMillan and Simon & Schuster, never have allowed library use of their books in digital format. In March of last year, HarperCollins announced that it would limit the number of times its digital books could be checked out to 26 uses. Then, poof.

That's three of the "big six" American publishers refusing to let libraries circulate their eBook titles, and a fourth setting a limit on use. Where the big publishers lead, smaller publishers tend to follow.

If you've tried to check out eBooks at your local library, you likely encountered a long wait list. Most publishers already insist that libraries treat a digital book as they would a physical one. If a library buys 15 copies of an eBook, they can only permit 15 patrons to be reading it at once. Fair enough.

Denying eBooks to public libraries is anything but fair. Publishers can say they fear book stealing. (Which, in case you didn't notice, insults library patrons.) But readers aren't stupid. They will visualize neon signs blinking "Greedy publishers."

I haven't seen a shred of evidence that suggests library patrons are more likely to tamper with DRM codes than anybody else. If anything, they would seem less likely to be culprits. If a reader is number 283 in line and hot to read a book, she's likely to click "Buy now." She can't steal the book; she hasn't been allowed to download it yet.

Denying public libraries eBooks is so mean-spirited, so unreasonable, so against the grain of American tradition, that it will surely backfire if anywhere near a majority of publishers do it. Stealing eBooks will become a laudable way to fight back, done with no pang of conscience whatever.

"You won't even share with public libraries? You greedy bastards! Watch me get books for nothing."

Last month I wrote here about my two-day adventure in becoming a digital book thief. My computer prowess is pretty basic. Even so, after about six or seven hours of browsing and reading, I was able to figure out how to strip DRM codes from eBooks. I found sites where people share books they'd already "freed." I learned how to cover my tracks if a digital sheriff comes looking for downloads. If I can do these things, anyone can. However, wouldn't making eBooks available at the local library make folks less likely to bother? And a book drought, the opposite?

I also discovered that many average Joes in chat rooms have a distorted idea of how we writers are paid. Time and again, book stealing was justified by saying "Why not? The author has already got his money." They seem to think publishers pay us up front for a book, and that's it. Writer and publisher, we're lumped together in the public mind.

As writers, as readers, as ASJA, we must promote library access to eBooks. Tell your publisher you want your eBook there. Americans fight for their libraries. We writers should push to keep eBooks in our public libraries.

ASJA president Salley Shannon urges you to share and tweet this column, especially with friends in the industry. (We change the world one-by-one.) To contact her: president==@==ASJA.org.