(2025-07-26) Lefsetz Ebook Revolution

Bob Lefsetz: E-Book Revolution. 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.*

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.

I reserve a book in the app, get notified when it’s available and then send it to my Kindle

e-books used to be a bargain, before the Apple settlement, now they are not

no one is more against e-books than Boomers, 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.

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.”*

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?

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

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.

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 (Spotify). 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.

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.