Hachette Book Group: Good Deal or Not?

May 6, 2013

After a two-year pilot phase, Hachette Book Group is expanding its ebook offerings to include it full catalog and a variety of ebook services including OverDrive, 3M, and Baker & Taylor. As ALA noted, having access to more front-list books is good for libraries and patrons in general, but are the specific terms of this deal good for libraries?

Following an unfortunate and rather misguided trend, Hachette Book Group is licensing ebooks with a one-year kill switch. Financially, this makes no sense for anyone involved; libraries, authors, and publishers all end up losing. Under this model, libraries are unable to build a collection of ebooks over time that could eventually replace current print collections. With time-based kill switches, ebooks are reduced to being a perpetual supplement of current hot titles.

With the knowledge of a title’s death looming over every transaction, libraries are more likely to avoid digital versions for titles that haven’t already proven a high level of desirability. This means that new authors with Hachette Book Group, Penguin, and other publishers that use a kill switch will have a much harder time breaking into library ebook collections. It also means publishers will likely end up with lower sales in terms of number of titles sold as libraries end up relicensing books whose time has expired. [EDIT 5/9 7:30pm – As noted in comment below, I was mistaken about the Hachette books being time limited. My apologies. Chris]

Another major problem with the Hachette Book Group offer is that it uses an entirely unrealistic reference point for establishing an ebook’s price to libraries. Front-list titles will be priced at three times the highest current-priced print version—which is, of course, a price that nobody in the marketplace ever really pays. With Amazon, consumer pricing for hardcover books often matches (or even beats) the 40% discount libraries have often received. Hachette Book Group’s pricing model truly adds insult to injury; wiping away the traditional library discount, and then tripling the cost.

So, Hachette Book Group, thank you for taking the first steps towards library ebook licensing. But can we maybe talk a bit more about these terms?

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Hachette Book Group: Good Deal or Not?

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