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Amazon To Offer Kindle ebooks Via Public Libraries
destinyland writes "Amazon announced this morning that they're making Kindle ebooks available for free in America through 11,000 local public libraries. 'We're thrilled that Amazon is offering such a new approach to library ebook...' said one Seattle librarian, and one Kindle blog listed out the top advantages to having them available in libraries."
I presume the service will automatically delete the books a week after borrowing?
Congratulations Amazon! You now offer a service that ALL OF THE OTHER ereader sellers have been able to take advantage of for years! B&N, Sony, Kobo, Bookeen, etc...
This would be through the Overdrive Media Service... and yes there is a list of participating libraries http://www.overdrive.com/About/Partners.aspx#Libraries . I work for a Public Library that does participate and it is a very useful service. OMS has had compatibility with all but Kindle up until now.
This is a service called Overdrive which has been around for quite a while. My understanding is that each library has to "buy" the eBooks, and can only lend out each of their "copies" that they "purchased". They can't lend out 2000 copies of a book if they only bought 3. It's basically setup to mirror the physical book model.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The libraries buy the books they lend, including ebooks. If they buy five copies, they can only lend five copies at a time. So, if 11,000 libraries are lending your book, there should be at least 11,000 sales to you. You imply that you are already publishing electronically, so why don't you already know this?
You should have spent the time typing your long-winded response to actually researching the topic.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
Be warned that search tool is apparently clunky. I searched for my city/state and was told "no matches." Backing up I tried our zip code and my local library showed right up along with two others in the area. I'd recommend sticking with zip code.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
one Kindle blog listed out the top advantages to having them available in libraries.
It is an interesting blog entry, that points out a bunch of the selfish little things that blogger gets out of it, but he missed one advantage:
It is in the long-term best interests of society to make works of science and the useful arts available for borrowing to all. In fact, broadening the reach of such information is the only reason we suffer copyright to exist in the first place. The profit creators are granted through the right of first sale is just a means to that end.
The amazing part of this story is not the wondrous new opportunity we have to borrow published materials from others after the first sale -- it is the chutzpah of the kleptocracy that kept it from happening on day one. And that selfish little kleptocrat blogger is no better. The point of this is not what it does for you, little man, it is what it does for society.
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I've found that the classic search is much better: http://search.overdrive.com/classic/
Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
My local library has been offering ebook lending for several years. They recommend Overdrive but the drm is just Adobe so you can use any ebook reader which supports adobe drm. You download the book in encrypted format and you get a time limited license which allows you to read it. After the 3 week lending period expires you cannot read the book anymore. There also seems to be a lockout in place so that only a one person can read a given ebook at a time. That sounds pretty silly but I guess it is a requirement of the publisher.
Its a pretty good system and I like being able to browse from home but the selection is still fairly poor.
Furthermore, if someone is going to pirate an ebook, why would they bother going through their library's website? I'm sure a few people will do this, thinking that they are somehow doing something "more ethical" or whatever (I've heard this argument from people who check out CDs and rip MP3s as opposed to just torrenting the albums), but it's not going to be very many. Why put up with the extra hassles?
If I had to take a guess, I'd say that the vast majority of people borrowing ebooks through their local library wouldn't even know what DRM is, let alone how to go about removing it.
Best thing for authors (such as GP) to remember when publishing electronically: the people who are going to pay for your content will pay for it if the quality is there. The people who are going to pirate it aren't likely to buy it at any price and aren't even worth worrying about.