If you are an American used to borrowing books from libraries all over the country, or indeed all over the world, you may be surprised to know that there is a very real cost associated with Inter-Library Loans (ILL), and that the bill is usually not footed by the patron, but by the library. The Chronicle of Higher Education has published an interesting first-hand perspective on these hidden costs, and on how ILL is a democratizing influence.
The e-book angle is obvious: with electronic versions of books freely available, the cost of just browsing books goes down, and people will only borrow them when needed. An unusual perspective on how often a book may be downloaded just to browse is given by Cory Doctorow in his 2004 essay “E books: neither E nor Books“:
There’s a temptation to view downloading a book as comparable to bringing it home from the store, but that’s the wrong metaphor. Some of the time, maybe most of the time, downloading the text of the book is like taking it off the shelf at the store and looking at the cover and reading the blurbs […]. Some writers are horrified at the idea that three hundred thousand copies of my first novel were downloaded and “only” ten thousand or so were sold so far. If it were the case that for every copy sold, thirty were taken home from the store, that would be a horrifying outcome, for sure. But look at it another way: if one out of every thirty people who glanced at the cover of my book bought it, I’d be a happy author. And I am. Those downloads cost me no more than glances at the cover in a bookstore, and the sales are healthy.
Most ePublishers and eBook distributors (like Fictionwise and Mobipocket) offer significant excerpts. Although a complete download might just be a look-at when the book is posted publically for free (as Doctorow does his), the eBook world definitely does offer the look-at-free that you get with paper books in a bookstore. Except, of course, you can examine your excerpt in the privacy of your home or office.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
Thanks for the fine article and links Branko. The transaction cost given for borrowing and lending in the Chronicle article are notable:
As Branko notes the availability of electronic texts would help to reduce this. Indeed for 30 dollars it seems conceivable that a facsimile book could be printed and given away to the requester and a royalty payment could be made to the author and publisher in some cases.
Consider the information pages describing the “Internet Archive Bookmobile” project. To print an electronic edition the website claims that the “cost is $1.65-$2.00 for renewables for a 240 page book.” The Internet Archive Bookmobile primarily creates print-on-demand books from public domain books. The website discusses the cost of hardware, software, and printing supplies and then makes an intriguing claim about printing and giving away books.
(Also see David Rothman’s recent reference to fast inkjet printers.)
I’ve been noodling around on Usenet e-books.technical. I’ve managed to download more quantum physics books than I could ever read… but also more than I could find on my local library shelves. I suspect that if one grabs my fancy, I’ll turn to the library to get a copy in my hands.