If I had a million dollars…I would still borrow books from the library
“If I had a million dollars, we wouldn’t have to eat Kraft Dinner. But we would eat Kraft dinner. Of course we would, we’d just eat more. And buy really expensive Ketchups with it.”
— If I Had $1,000,0000, Barenaked Ladies
We’ll get to Maya’s piece in a bit. First, an intro:
Ken Whyte is the founder of the non-fiction publishing house SutherlandHouse Books. He is also the author of various books, as well as the writer of the weekly newsletter, SHuSh — a must-read for anyone interested in the mysterious world of publishing.
And he loves to create conversations controversy.
Just over a year and a half ago, he wrote an opinion piece in the Globe “Throwing The Book At Libraries,“ where he argues “bookstores are in competition with libraries, whether they want to admit it or not.”
One takeaway? Americans “saved” — my quotations — just under US$30.4 billion last year using public libraries.
By distributing books for free, he argues, libraries “saved Americans a much greater sum than the combined earnings of all the publishers who make the books.”
Canadians borrow about 224 million books a year. “There were 54 million books sold in Canada in 2018. That means that for every book sold, roughly 4.5 are borrowed,” he writes.
According to his calculations, Canadians “save” (again, my quotation) about $400 million a year borrowing books from libraries.
And then there’s the argument that the average Canadian writer makes $9,380.
“Writers are loath to draw a line between the fact that they’re poor and the fact that four out of five of their patrons get their books at no charge,” he writes. (To be clear: he does NOT hate libraries and does understand how and why libraries are important and beneficial to so many people for so many reasons.)
One way to change dire author incomes, he suggests, is that adults who can afford to should pay for the right to borrow books “for entertainment.”
But what constitutes “entertainment?” (Maybe I find his own heavily researched biographies “entertainment.” How much did he get paid to write this piece? Usually, opinion pieces no longer pay, and if they did, trust me, he did not get paid more than a couple of hundred dollars, max.)
He proposes something like a Netflix fee, charging patrons around $12.99 a month. (He suggests other ideas here.)
I tried to argue that he’s pointing the finger at, at least partially, the wrong culprit. I argued that without libraries, we would have a less educated society, which is a much greater cost.
Any decrease in reading, or access to reading, reduces overall intelligence. And we’ve all seen stupid by now.
Plus, believe it or not, there are just some things you can’t learn from a YouTube video.
(I have my own personal out-of-the-box ideas on how authors and publishers can sell more books, which I will tackle next week.)
Since I know Maya — the executive editor over here — is an avid library user, I asked her to read the article to tear it apart and express her thoughts.
You can read the original article here. Once you’ve read Maya’s take, come back to tell us your thoughts!
If I had a million dollars…I would still borrow books (from the library)
By Maya B.
By now, if you have been reading my articles in RE:books, you know that I am a huge proponent of the public library. I know many of you support the library and use the library, which is true for most in our society. However, there are individuals, like Rebecca mentioned above, who argue that libraries are a waste of money, time, resources, and that they don’t support authors and their publishers.
Libraries have many functions, most of which are to support the community. In lower-income demographics, the library supports those who cannot afford the luxuries of the digital world.
Without access to the internet, certain demographics are incapable of sustaining themselves, since so many resources they need are available through those channels.
But the above is a broad and complicated issue seeded in politics and socioeconomic issues that are beyond my scope.
What I am sure of, though, is that as a society, we have a responsibility to each and every individual in our community, and that libraries support a large percentage of every population and have the means to do so.
What I am going to concentrate on is the ridiculous arguments that 1) libraries don’t support authors and publishers because it lends books for free and 2) rich people don’t (and shouldn’t) go to the library because they can afford to buy books.
It is ridiculous to think that libraries and their clientele don’t support authors and publishers. First and foremost, the library supports authors by promotion. They endorse authors and their books and introduce books to their patrons.
I wouldn’t be familiar with countless of my favourite authors if it weren’t for the library.
The library gives authors a platform that is unlike any other to reach segments of populations that otherwise wouldn’t be privy to them.
To suggest that libraries don’t support authors financially is even more laughable. With that logic, you would have to shut down all used bookstores and pass a law prohibiting people from giving away books they bought.
Can you imagine a borrow-a-book rule? If libraries didn’t exist, countless authors wouldn’t be able to write multiple books, since they could not sustain a reputation from book sales alone.
And publishers are naïve if they think the library hurts their sales, just because there are not enough people in the world that can afford to buy every book they want to read; not even the so-called “rich”.
Which brings me to the next laughable argument: It is absurd to think that rich people buy books and don’t use the library. If I use a neighbour as an example, they get 10-12 books a week out of the library for their son. That’s an average of $7,800 a year. Not a lot for a “rich” family, but I would still argue that not many families would spend this much.
Also, a bookstore lacks the diversity of selections that a library has. Even if you could get your hands on 624 books a year, where would you put them? (The main reason, it seems, many no longer want to buy physical copies of books.)
If you get less books? Well, that wouldn’t be supporting authors. Or education. Maybe if you’re wealthy you have a home library, but at this rate, you would have a whole house of books by the time your kids are teenagers. (Fun fact? Paris Hilton built a mini-mansion for her dogs in her backyard. I wonder if she would ever build one for books. I would!)
Personally, I got my hands on close to 100 books last year (because of this newsletter and going back to college). Let’s say that I finished reading 50. A book a week. In today’s economy, that would cost me an average of $1,000.
If I bought every book I consider buying, though, that would be closer to $,5000. Unrealistic.
I, too, reached out to some people I know who would be able to afford this. You know what they said?! Well, not much, but it did make them laugh. One person said it was such a ridiculous idea to think she would spend that amount on books a year — even though she has purses and shoes that cost that much.
It is simply absurd to think that people, even if they could afford it, should go buy all the books they want to read.
Plus “rich” people only make up a very small percentage of the population, so even if they did start buying — assuming that they are readers in the first place — it wouldn’t change the fact that we still need libraries!
And if we look at the math, I don’t think “those who can afford to buy books” alone would make authors and publishers as rich as they think.
Libraries have been around for ages for a reason. They change with the times because they must in order to support the community. They’re able to be sustained on a little labour and meagre budgets.
On paper, the solutions Ken suggested look promising, like paying a monthly subscription or limiting bestsellers so patrons would have to wait months to read the latest bestseller.
However, in reality, there are some factors they did not take into account.
First, he argues, “More money would solve the problem”. Guess what? There is no “more money”.
I do agree that all government levels should budget more into libraries because they are a valuable and needed resource, but politicians still don’t see libraries as such, or don’t recognize the weight of their contribution to society.
Ken, you suggest a monthly subscription to cover the costs that municipal bodies don’t. So, I invite you to research subscriptions such as Netflix, since you brought it up, or the Toronto Star (as another example).
What you fail to see, and I don’t mean this as a slight, but probably because you can afford any subscription you want, is that these (and all other subscription services) have two issues: the first being that middle to low-income households are not going to bother and will find their needs met somewhere else. For example, I used to be a regular newspaper reader. I don’t read newspapers at all anymore; I find my news intake in other places.
Occasionally, the Toronto Star will make a good article available online, and I will read it. But I can also easily live without reading it.
The reason I don’t subscribe is not because I can’t afford the 99¢/week; it’s because I can use the $52 a year better somewhere else, and I can get my news somewhere else.
More importantly, by not subscribing to get through paywalls, I am missing out on good articles by fantastic journalists (one of my personal favourites, along with Rebecca’s, being Kevin Donovan).
Again, I still just can live without it. I also don’t have my own Netflix account. I use my sister’s account. This IS because I cannot afford $120/yr. People can live without bestsellers like John Grisham, believe it or not, and they would go without reading his books, simply because Johan Grisham is not a pot they are willing to fill their hard-earned money with.
The other issue that is at stake here is piracy. Like any other vice in society, people have found a way to get their hands on newly released books online without paying for them.
I am presenting this to you since I have been privy to such by way of a well-to-do individual who taught me how to get around most paywalls.
If you cut the free service, many will take advantage of illegal avenues to acquire what they want to read. I’d also like to note that I am vehemently against doing this, and though I was offered links, personally, I will never take advantage of them.
I have friends who are authors and publishers. It will never be my intention to steal from them. I will not deny that some people will make use of such a service.
But in return, the library will lose many more patrons than those who would subscribe.
Another factor that Ken fails to address in the article is used bookstores, free little libraries, and various book exchanges.
Just yesterday I was sent a post on Facebook about a relatively new book being sold online. Someone paid $20–$25 for a new release in September and is now reselling it for $5.
No one is making money here. And what about online sites such as Bookoutlet, Book Depository, Abe Books, etc.? These are existing business models that are available to the public, and where authors and publishers don’t profit.
If you close libraries or apply a fee, you will drive people (including the rich) to book exchanges, burrowing from friends or little free libraries or to places where they can get a newly released book for $10 or less. The author’s suggestions in the article are unviable, and I think he’d be very surprised at the small increment it will add to your earnings.
Publishers can go ahead and limit the books they send to libraries. But the same as above will apply. You will be surprised at how many people can live without Jodi Picoult, James Patterson, and even Margaret Atwood.
What readers can’t live without is a story — not a book or an author — and they will find books and stories elsewhere.
Plus, another argument to make is that just because the above-mentioned are bestsellers, again this is not a slight, they are not necessarily the best authors.
Like the article says, many talented authors are out there trying to make a living. I would argue that some of those are not marketed properly, so the reading community is missing out, but that’s for a different discussion.
In the future, I do want to write a novel (hopefully more than one), so I stand by your argument that authors and publishers are entitled to make a living at their craft.
Writing is an art, though. Like all art, it is subjective. And artists, like authors, should be able to make a living, but most of the time, they don’t.
So many dream of staying at home, possibly in Nova Scotia in a cozy cottage, looking over the bay and writing for a living. And thanks to self-publishing, there are now more authors, than ever before.
The reality is, like artists and musicians, the market is saturated, and there will be only a few that will make a lavish or even good-enough living or lifestyle.
And that, in my opinion, is a result of today’s world. Libraries may be a factor in this, but Ken and publishers in general are giving it too much credit. If you think closing libraries will solve what you perceive is a problem for authors and publishers, it just won’t. Ken’s issue is with people who read books and won’t buy enough.
I am not in publishing. I have little background in what it entails and how it works. But in my humble opinion, as someone who is not an “insider” working in the publishing bubble, as this author is, I believe I’ve outlined some credible and thoughtful arguments.
Basically, you’re fishing in the wrong pond. The idea that we should be done with libraries should be done with itself! And to the people who think otherwise? Get your head out of your ass and take some accountability for social responsibility.
xo
Maya B.