Macmillan Still "Looking for a Business Model" for Library Ebooks
By David Rapp Jan 25, 2011The ebook gap between publishers and libraries is no less wide after a publisher panel titled "A CEO's View of the Future" at the Digital Book World Conference & Expo 2011—but a number of comments put libraries in the spotlight.
During the panel's audience question period, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blogger Sarah Wendell put Macmillan president Brian Napack on the spot, asking why Macmillan's books aren't available in libraries. "I'd love to borrow [them], but I can't," she told Napack. "Why?"
Napack responded that Macmillan had "spent a long time looking for a business model" for putting Macmillan ebooks in libraries, but did not confirm when—or if—it would happen.
Immediately countering Napack, Jane Friedman, CEO and cofounder of Open Road Integrated Media, started with a standing myth, saying that, "the library consumer has not traditionally been a book buyer." However, she then urged the room full of some 1300 publishing industry representatives to consider the idea that library patrons were a demographic that publishers could fruitfully pursue. "The person who's downloading that library book is downloading," she said, adding that the person could be just "a click away" from an ebook purchase.
Publishers under the Macmillan umbrella include Farrar, Straus & Giroux, St. Martin's Press, Henry Holt & Co., Picador, and the popular science fiction and fantasy publisher Tor/Forge.
The intersection between libraries and publishers in an ebook world will be further explored at a library-centered panel moderated by LJ's Josh Hadro. "The Ebook Ecosystem: Where Do Libraries Fit In?," will be held on Wednesday, January 26, at 1:30 p.m. EST. It will feature Random House's Ruth Liebmann, NYPL's Christopher Platt, Baker & Taylor's George Coe, and OverDrive's Steve Potash. (Follow the panel on Twitter at #DBW11.)
Watch for more LJ coverage as the conference continues.
[Library Journal is a media sponsor of DBW 2011.]
