This is just a quick post to announce that the ebooks in the Emperor’s Edge series are now free to libraries via Smashwords. If you’d like to help spread the word about the stories (this is much appreciated!), you can ask your library to carry them.
I’m not quite sure how the behind-the-scenes stuff works, but it sounds like the Smashwords Library Direct program is available to any library or library network that hosts and manages its own ebook checkout system, typically using Adobe Content Server.
Here are a couple of blog posts on the Smashwords Library Direct Program and how authors can discount their books.
- Library Direct Enables Libraries to Acquire Large Opening Collections of Smashwords Ebooks
- Smashwords Pricing Manager Tool Enables Custom Library Pricing
This is a fabulous gesture and I’m sure a great way to get your books into even more hands.
I’ve been reading a lot lately online about how tough some traditional publishers are making e-books for libraries and I think it’s a sad state of affairs.
This is a great move and I hope to see many more people copy it.
I hope so too. Thanks for commenting, Kirstie!
First, I absolutely love your books. I stumbled across the Emperor’s Edge free about a year ago, and I don’t say this often, but they there were fantastic. Right up there with my old favorites from David Eddings, Jim Butcher, etc. I have read each of them several times already!! (I do this a lot). I am also finishing up my final year getting my Master’s in Library and Information Studies. Ebooks and libraries have been the topic of many, many discussions, for as Kirstie said above, tensions are high between libraries and publishers right now. While part of me does feel upset that we don’t have a good system to also let you, the author, get paid, the part of my that loves the books and loves to get others to read books thinks it is wonderful that you are making this gesture to libraries. I am going to share this with my home library to see if this is something they can include in the ebook collection- Thank you!
Thank you, Sarah! I believe quite a few Smashwords authors are choosing to make their ebooks free (or available at a discount) for libraries. It’s more exposure for us, so a good deal all around!
Lindsay,
How many libraries actually use Library Direct? I’ve been told Overdrive is where all the library action is at.
Any experience with Overdrive?
JMP
I hope this is open to school libraries as well as public ones. I am definitely mentioning this to my sister, a middle school librarian who has had NO budget to buy new books for two years!
She can’t buy books, but the school gave iPads to all the students… OK, we won’t get in a discussion about what’s wrong with schools these days.
I know that Emperor’s Edge isn’t really YA, but it’s entertaining as all heck, so I think middle school students would like it as much as the next person. And the series is a lot easier to read than Moby Dick (which her school has). Who wouldn’t rather read about Sicarius than Captain Ahab?