At the beginning of this month, multinational publishing giant HarperCollins triggered a public outcry following its decision to cap the number of times one of its e-books could be borrowed from a library to 26.
The ensuing hue and cry prompted the publisher’s sales chief to write, in an open letter, “We have serious concerns that our previous e-book policy, selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging e-book eco-system, hurt the growing e-book channel, place additional pressure on physical bookstores, and in the end lead to a decrease in book sales and royalties paid to authors.” It wasn’t enough to reassure critics of the move. Here’s an excellent analysis from Meanland’s Jacinda Woodhead.