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No, the impact is different. The library doesn't pay for the ebook just once. When the library buys the ebook, they're allowed to lend it a certain number of ti

No, the impact is different. The library doesn't pay for the ebook just once. When the library buys the ebook, they're allowed to lend it a certain number of times before they have to buy the book again. Or they pay for a number of lends per day and payments for the books checked out are distributed to the appropriate publishers. The relationship between physical book checkouts and author/publisher revenue is less direct, but the ebook contracts are an attempt to emulate decay and damage to physical books that require periodic repurchases. Arguably you are hastening the end of a physical book's life and its need to be repurchased, or need to stock more copies, by checking it out. Please don't misunderstand my explanation to be an endorsement of standard ebook lending contracts.

Rimintil 4y ago
> The relationship between physical book checkouts and author/publisher revenue is less direct Indeed. The publisher charges universities etc. a one time lump sum to purchase N copies of a book. The author gets next to nothing. Source: am an author of technical books. Royalties will buy me a few cardboard boxes.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
  why do we need "publishers" in today's market?is not like you have to have 4 intermediaries to sell on amazon or even digital copies? i'd be more forthcoming to pay $10 for a book that i know 50-70-90% proceeds go to the author than 2-4-5% which the rest take up? publishers, printers, yada yada must've been important to sell books 50 years ago but are they really necessary today?
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > why do we need "publishers" in today's market? Distributing and marketing a book still takes expertise.
    - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
      ah, so the one who is supposed to make money from his/her skill is given pittance while distribution and marketing people take the cake. fine. edit: if onlyfans can allow questionable skills be monetized and give millions to the um, performers, surely an author can find a way to sell their own books themselves
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > the one who is supposed to make money from his/her skill is given pittance while distribution and marketing people take the cake You may want to read on the economics of publishing instead of working off assumptions [1]. Scientific publishers are a scam. But trade fiction and nonfiction publishing isn’t a moneymaker. [1] https://www.almostanauthor.com/the-economics-of-publishing/ https://www.almostanauthor.com/the-economics-of-publishing/
        2Gkashmiri 4y ago
        i need some numbers... $100 book(fiction for ease of understanding), how much does each entity in the chain from author to consumer earns? if that is the economics, where does digital books and audibooks fare? why do you need the intermediaries in that thing? same for amazon? its not like i HAVE to pay a printer to publish a digital ebook so if that is removed from the pie, shouldn't the author "get" that portion also?
      - jrm4 4y ago
        I've always said that onlyfans is one of the more ethical platforms; there's less of a question of who gets paid and how.
        2Gkashmiri 4y ago
        so what is the role of publishers and marketers and whole dinosaur industry that should die already. i've had a proposal. From a $100 physical book, an author makes say 5%. That is all their work as the original work and remuneration they get so if we move to digital, how about the author double or triple that to say $15. add another $5 for delivery and the same book now costs me $20 and the author gets "more" money, something they actually want and what i want, to consume the content created and support the author and be easy on the wallet. this would probably kill the paper book model overnight but i really don't have concerns about the poor publishers and printers who would go out of job
  - Rimintil 4y ago
    Self-publishing isn't free, and usually requires guidance from a professional resource to do properly without your book being lost in the chaff. You may get a higher percentage of return, but haven spoken to a fellow community member who has done self-publishing and writing for a major publisher, they commented they would never do self-publishing again. My books are both in eBook format and paperback. ~400-500 hundred pages in length. The hundreds of hours spent writing the book/taking screenshots, formatting, does not pay off, at least for technical books. Creating technical books is purely for the notoriety, possibly job prospects, etc., IME. I've had wonderful community feedback which is certainly a self-esteem boost (maybe ego, which isn't necessarily a good thing :)), but it is only going to buy me a few cups of coffee at Starbucks.
elil17 4y ago
The physical degradation of the books seems like such a minor effect. I'm pretty gentle with books. As for library ebooks, I had no idea the contracts were structured like that.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Like with so many physical possessions, it really varies from person to person. Some people have libraries full of books they've read, and all their books are in pristine condition. Look at their other possessions and they're all in excellent condition. Other people, you loan them one paperback book, and when you get it back it looks like it's been dropped off a highway overpass bridge and run over in rush-hour traffic. Look at other possessions that person has, and you'll see the same thing: they're all beat up and pieces of them are broken. Some people are just destructive for some reason, and it's entirely from carelessness, not malice.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    "Some people are just destructive for some reason, and it's entirely from carelessness, not malice. " And then some people simply consider books as objects for use, and not sacred reliques to be touched only with glothes. (unless we are talking about historical books) I mean, books or rather the information in them is kind of sacred to me. But the physical objects are just paper, that can be printed out again, if it has been in too heavy use. And heavy use includes them to be in a tightly packed backpack, close to saltwater or rain, among other things. If I would treat books as fragile things, I would only read them at home, which means, I would miss out on them a lot, as I like to go outside and travel.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      It sounds like you're one of those people who can't handle everyday objects without breaking them somehow. I'm not talking about treating things as extremely fragile, I'm just referring to being able to use and handle things without somehow destroying them in short order. The people who do this are just like you: they think it's normal and think everyone else is overly cautious, when in reality they're just a clumsy oaf. These are also the kind of people you can't lend tool to, because they'll destroy them, by doing things like using a screwdriver as a pry-bar.
bawolff 4y ago
If you break a book at the library, you usually have to pay for its replacement. Sure there is some normal wear and tear that isnt "breaking the book", but if you browse through your library you will find lots of books that were purchased 20-40 years ago that are still in good shape. I don't really think normal wear and tear is very significant.
- 1123581321 4y ago
  Still, you now understand the publishers’ logic. The publisher doesn’t care who buys the replacement, only that they get some revenue from it. Libraries argue similarly that the wear-and-tear model is miscalibrated, but they are in a weak negotiating position.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    I mean, from where i'm sitting the logic is "how can we extract as much revenue as possible", with the wear and tear argument being post hoc justification.

Rimintil 4y ago

> The relationship between physical book checkouts and author/publisher revenue is less direct Indeed. The publisher charges universities etc. a one time lump sum to purchase N copies of a book. The author gets next to nothing. Source: am an author of technical books. Royalties will buy me a few cardboard boxes.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago
why do we need "publishers" in today's market?is not like you have to have 4 intermediaries to sell on amazon or even digital copies? i'd be more forthcoming to pay $10 for a book that i know 50-70-90% proceeds go to the author than 2-4-5% which the rest take up? publishers, printers, yada yada must've been important to sell books 50 years ago but are they really necessary today?
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > why do we need "publishers" in today's market? Distributing and marketing a book still takes expertise.
  - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
    ah, so the one who is supposed to make money from his/her skill is given pittance while distribution and marketing people take the cake. fine. edit: if onlyfans can allow questionable skills be monetized and give millions to the um, performers, surely an author can find a way to sell their own books themselves
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > the one who is supposed to make money from his/her skill is given pittance while distribution and marketing people take the cake You may want to read on the economics of publishing instead of working off assumptions [1]. Scientific publishers are a scam. But trade fiction and nonfiction publishing isn’t a moneymaker. [1] https://www.almostanauthor.com/the-economics-of-publishing/ https://www.almostanauthor.com/the-economics-of-publishing/
      - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
        i need some numbers... $100 book(fiction for ease of understanding), how much does each entity in the chain from author to consumer earns? if that is the economics, where does digital books and audibooks fare? why do you need the intermediaries in that thing? same for amazon? its not like i HAVE to pay a printer to publish a digital ebook so if that is removed from the pie, shouldn't the author "get" that portion also?
    - jrm4 4y ago
      I've always said that onlyfans is one of the more ethical platforms; there's less of a question of who gets paid and how.
      - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
        so what is the role of publishers and marketers and whole dinosaur industry that should die already. i've had a proposal. From a $100 physical book, an author makes say 5%. That is all their work as the original work and remuneration they get so if we move to digital, how about the author double or triple that to say $15. add another $5 for delivery and the same book now costs me $20 and the author gets "more" money, something they actually want and what i want, to consume the content created and support the author and be easy on the wallet. this would probably kill the paper book model overnight but i really don't have concerns about the poor publishers and printers who would go out of job
- Rimintil 4y ago
  Self-publishing isn't free, and usually requires guidance from a professional resource to do properly without your book being lost in the chaff. You may get a higher percentage of return, but haven spoken to a fellow community member who has done self-publishing and writing for a major publisher, they commented they would never do self-publishing again. My books are both in eBook format and paperback. ~400-500 hundred pages in length. The hundreds of hours spent writing the book/taking screenshots, formatting, does not pay off, at least for technical books. Creating technical books is purely for the notoriety, possibly job prospects, etc., IME. I've had wonderful community feedback which is certainly a self-esteem boost (maybe ego, which isn't necessarily a good thing :)), but it is only going to buy me a few cups of coffee at Starbucks.

elil17 4y ago

The physical degradation of the books seems like such a minor effect. I'm pretty gentle with books. As for library ebooks, I had no idea the contracts were structured like that.

midoridensha 4y ago
Like with so many physical possessions, it really varies from person to person. Some people have libraries full of books they've read, and all their books are in pristine condition. Look at their other possessions and they're all in excellent condition. Other people, you loan them one paperback book, and when you get it back it looks like it's been dropped off a highway overpass bridge and run over in rush-hour traffic. Look at other possessions that person has, and you'll see the same thing: they're all beat up and pieces of them are broken. Some people are just destructive for some reason, and it's entirely from carelessness, not malice.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "Some people are just destructive for some reason, and it's entirely from carelessness, not malice. " And then some people simply consider books as objects for use, and not sacred reliques to be touched only with glothes. (unless we are talking about historical books) I mean, books or rather the information in them is kind of sacred to me. But the physical objects are just paper, that can be printed out again, if it has been in too heavy use. And heavy use includes them to be in a tightly packed backpack, close to saltwater or rain, among other things. If I would treat books as fragile things, I would only read them at home, which means, I would miss out on them a lot, as I like to go outside and travel.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    It sounds like you're one of those people who can't handle everyday objects without breaking them somehow. I'm not talking about treating things as extremely fragile, I'm just referring to being able to use and handle things without somehow destroying them in short order. The people who do this are just like you: they think it's normal and think everyone else is overly cautious, when in reality they're just a clumsy oaf. These are also the kind of people you can't lend tool to, because they'll destroy them, by doing things like using a screwdriver as a pry-bar.

bawolff 4y ago

If you break a book at the library, you usually have to pay for its replacement. Sure there is some normal wear and tear that isnt "breaking the book", but if you browse through your library you will find lots of books that were purchased 20-40 years ago that are still in good shape. I don't really think normal wear and tear is very significant.

1123581321 4y ago
Still, you now understand the publishers’ logic. The publisher doesn’t care who buys the replacement, only that they get some revenue from it. Libraries argue similarly that the wear-and-tear model is miscalibrated, but they are in a weak negotiating position.
- bawolff 4y ago
  I mean, from where i'm sitting the logic is "how can we extract as much revenue as possible", with the wear and tear argument being post hoc justification.