Lean Publishing Tip of the Day: Should You Sell Your Book To Libraries?
Our answer is that we love libraries, and that libraries need to arrange for this kind of purchase directly with the author.
Libraries sometimes reach out to Leanpub asking if they can buy ebooks that are for sale on our platform, and add them to their collection to lend to their members.
Our answer is that we love libraries, and that libraries need to arrange for this kind of purchase directly with the author.
Leanpub Support
Here's a passage from our Help Center article on this topic:
"Just to be extra clear, how you handle everything, including storing and providing the ebook file or files, is something you and the author arrange between yourselves, with no involvement from Leanpub."
Why Is This A Question At All? Isn't It Obvious I Should Want My Book To Be In Libraries?
Speaking for myself (Len), I think it absolutely should go without saying that as an author, whether your book is self-published or company-published, you should want your book to be in libraries - with one important caveat.
What's The Objection Some People Have To Libraries?
There are people out there, including authors, author associations, bookstore owners, and book publishing company executives, who basically believe that library lending, and especially digital library lending, diminishes their revenue from book sales.
That might seem obviously true or obviously untrue to you (it's the latter for me), but it's not actually obvious either way, partly because this is just such a high-level issue that you can't derive some straightforward cause-and-effect schema from it.
Watch the livestream to learn more, but if you're really interested, I recommend you read this article by book industry expert Jane Friedman.
Jane Friedman
What's The Caveat?
My own caveat to authors regarding selling your book to libraries is that library lending is incredibly complex.
Here's an interview from our podcast, way back in 2018, where our guest helped explain how convoluted, changeable, and non-transparent library lending can be.
Every single deal you make with a library is likely to be unique, perhaps even involving a contract.
And you are unlikely to sell your book for even double the ordinary sale price.
So, the caveat is that selling your book to libraries may be tedious and take a lot of time.
There are platforms out there you can use to make it simpler, of course.
Related Articles:
- Can libraries buy Leanpub ebooks? What is your policy for library purchases?
- I'm a university or college professor and I'd like to buy Leanpub ebooks for my students. What should I do?
- I've got a question for a Leanpub author. How can I contact them?
