Distribution is king.

Thursday Cliff Burnstein e-mailed me about Gary Shteyngart's new book "Vera, or Faith." He loved it, he wanted to know if I'd read it.

I said I had it reserved at the LIBRARY! That Libby told me I'd get it in two weeks. But the very next day, it became available.

I'm loath to tell people about Libby, the same way I'm loath to tell them the models of coffee yogurt I eat. Twice I've said what kind of coffee yogurt I prefer and then found it unavailable at my local market while my inbox was filled with testimonials from readers on how much they loved this brand and flavor.

Libby is the public library's e-book lending platform. It's all free. All you need is a library card, which is also free. You go on the app, reserve books, get notified when they're available and when they are, you get them for twenty one days. And on some of the most popular books you get notified that you can skip the line and have them for seven days.

My mother used to reserve books at the library. By time she got them it was six to twelve months after release. So I pooh-poohed Libby before I tried it. I was wrong, I'm now a convert. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread!

I reserve a book in the app, get notified when it's available and then send it to my Kindle. You can also get audiobooks too, which I happen to be down on. My mind wanders. I tried it with Eric Puchner's "Model Home." Waiting for a rental car, I decided to pick up on the Kindle app on my phone (I'd also gotten the e-book). I was stunned at how much I'd missed, POSITIVELY STUNNED! Then again, I'm the kind of reader who reads very comprehensively, needs to know every word, what it means, what's the gist.

And having switched to the e-book version of "Model Home," I lost it! It expired! But even though Libby told me it'd be nearly two months before it was available again, it came two days later! I debated buying it, but e-books used to be a bargain, before the Apple settlement, now they are not. I was two-thirds of the way through, I couldn't justify it, I'd made the right decision.

Now no one is more against e-books than Bomers, even Gen-X'ers. They'll wax rhapsodic about the physical book, browsing in stores, say that they tried the Kindle but it hurt their eyes or some other poppycock.

Bottom line, books have reached their Napster moment. And once again, the powers-that-be are pooh-poohing it. Just like CDs were supposedly better than MP3s, one must read physical books!

As for youngsters... I quizzed my friend's college student son. EVERYTHING was digital. None of the books were physical. Do you expect this guy to start buying physical books in the future? NO!

And then there's BookTok.

The same oldsters decrying e-books are not on TikTok, and therefore they're unaware of this phenomenon. If you want talk about books, recommendations, it's all on BookTok. And on TikTok the Kindle is king, people decorate them like their Crocs!

But the story finally hit the mainstream today:

"Libraries Pay More for E-Books. Some States Want to Change That. - Proposed legislation would pressure publishers to adjust borrowing limits and find other ways to widen access."

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/books/libraries-e-books-licensing.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ZU8.zMnH.3JnlgUAlsIsK&smid=url-share

And what do publishers say?

"Big publishers and many authors say that e-book library access undermines their already struggling business models."

Where have we heard that before?

And:

"She added that authors need every penny in royalties they can get. A 2023 Authors Guild survey found the median income for authors from their books was just $10,000 annually. 'We have always been supportive of more library funding, but don’t make authors subsidize access,' Rasenberger said. (Several authors declined to comment by name for fear of review bombing.)"

Think back twenty five years. With the record labels saying that Napster was hurting artists. And what did so many artists say? THEY NEVER GOT PAID ANY ROYALTIES! Furthermore, the wide distribution of their songs on Napster allowed them to make new fans, tour in other markets.

I don't want to debate the economics, other than to say the e-book is here to stay. And by denying it, established publishers and older readers have allowed it to flourish unconstrained. Instead of getting ahead of the problem, they're behind it, just like the record labels. The labels were ultimately saved by Daniel Ek. But who is going to save the publishers?

Well, the difference is people are borrowing books that libraries paid for. The question is what should the economics be, should there be a limit to the number of reads, the amount of time the book is available...all contrary to the physical book model.

You can't stuff the genie back into the bottle. E-books have triumphed and the publishing industry and oldsters not only don't want to admit it, in many cases they don't even know it! Remember, it was college students with high-speed connections who cottoned to Napster. Most homes were still on dial-up. And we'd been sold the canard that the CD was better. But once I used the service, I realized how great it was. But rather than license it, the labels killed Napster, which was replaced with other P2P models and revenue kept going down until Mr. Ek saved them.

But Ek is the enemy.

Not to the labels, Spotify is their HERO! Their number one account!

But acts with few streams say the model is unfair. This is kind of like the 10k author income above...most people don't want to read most books! If you think that's unfair... You're either ignorant or a socialist.

The bottom line is if you read books and you don't own a Kindle and use Libby...

You're missing out.

You stream music, why not read digitally? That's what you're doing right now!

Start here:

https://libbyapp.com/interview/welcome#doYouHaveACard


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