From: Eric Hellman <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2013 11:22:51 -0500

The numbers are important here.

We're not talking about a comparison to 1600 books here, since the
only major publisher willing to let libraries lend ebooks on a durable
basis is Random House, and their comparable per copy pricing would be
$80 to $100.

So that's 10,000 smashwords ebooks vs. 400-500 Random House ebooks.
And the favorable licensing terms offered by Smashwords mean that the
same book offered by Smashwords is much more valuable to the library
than the same book offered by Random House. Restrictive/onorous
licensing REDUCES the value of the licensed product! So this is
valuing the average Smashwords title at perhaps 1% or 2% of the
average title from Random House.

With patron feedback (circa data for example), DCL will be able to
preferentially surface the fraction of Smashwords titles that patrons
find most valuable.

The other number that's important is that DCL serves a population of
290,000 people, 60% of whom are library patrons. So for an expenditure
of about 20 cents per patron, access is enabled for 10,000 books.
That's 2 millicents per book per patron. That's right, a penny of
library funding results in access to 500 books for me.

Also, list members seem not to have kept up with recent news in trade
publishing. Look at the NYT ebook bestseller list. 4 of these title
are from smashwords. Another 4 are "50 shades" related. 50 shades was
originally released as free fan fiction!

http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2012-08-05/e-book-fiction/list.html
http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/07/multiple-smashwords-authors-hit-new.html

Having said that, it's important to note that Smashwords has a lot of
work to do it getting its categorization and metadata up to library
standards to enable the sort of collection development work that
libraries do. But on the whole, Smashwords more than Random House is
the future of public libraries. Get used to it.

Eric

(disclosure: unglue.it users recently "unglued" a smashwords title)

Eric Hellman
President, Gluejar.Inc.
Founder, Unglue.it https://unglue.it/
http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/
twitter: @gluejar


On Jan 7, 2013, at 5:01 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2013 17:31:38 -0600

My question is, why would any library want to spend $40,000 on
self-published books, whose quality is completely unvalidated by any
kind of review process? Wouldn't that money spent on 1,600 high
quality books be a better purchase for a public library?
Self-published books from Smashwords are so cheap that patrons should
have no difficulty purchasing their own copies. What kind of service
does this public library think that it is providing to its patrons
with this purchase? It does not appear to be providing any content
quality assurance of its own.

Sandy Thatcher