662 million digital books were borrowed in 2023, up 19%. Don’t tell Markus Dohle!

From The New Publishing Standard:

With the waiting list at 253 million, OverDrive saw demand for almost one billion downloads in 2022.
OverDrive’s digital library lending numbers for 2023 have been announced, and as usual its bad news for the Markus Dohle fantasy world where ebooks are forever 20% of the market.

With digital checkouts totalling 662 million, a 19% rise on 2022, here’s how the numbers broke down for 2023.

Ebooks: 370 million, up 12%

Audiobooks: 235 million, up 23%

Magazines: 56 million, up 75%

Comics and graphic novels: 37 million, up 14%

And to rub salt into Dohle’s wounds, the ebook and audiobook holds/wait list stood at 253 million (+19%). In other words there would have even a further 253 million downloads, taking the total to 915 million. And to put that yet another way, if the content had been available, OverDrive could have clocked close to one billion digital downloads last year.

Globally, 152 public library systems in seven countries (up 13%) clocked more than one million downloads apiece, and among those 72 clocked more than two million, while the front runners saw downloads hit 11 and 12 million. (Details to be published by OverDrive soon.)

. . . .

Unlike retail and subscription – even all-you-can-eat subscription – there is no price friction when it comes to digital libraries.

Yet still ebook consumption outperforms audiobook consumption by 36.5%, with 135 million more ebooks being borrowed than audiobooks.

Don’t tell Markus!

Link to the rest at The New Publishing Standard

Markus Dohle was the Chief Executive Officer of Penguin Random House until he quit in January, 2023.

Markus was dead set against ebook subscription or lending programs for just about anybody, including libraries.

Dohle told the Court during a trial for illegal price-fixing (that snagged most of the big book publishers in the dumbest violation of US Antitrust laws that PG has ever seen or read about) that if subscription got its wicked way there would be no bricks & mortar retail left within three years, and that publishers would be “dependent on a few Silicon Valley or Swedish companies”. That of course is totally unacceptable. Imagine if two German companies dominated the US publishing sector. No, wait…

Here’s a lovely quote from one of Dohle’s side-kicks:

PRH UK CEO Tom Weldon, in full gatekeeper costume, said in 2014, “We have two problems with subscription. We are not convinced it is what readers want. ‘Eat everything you can’ isn’t a reader’s mindset. In music or film you might want 10,000 songs or films, but I don’t think you want 10,000 books.”

The obvious answer is if readers don’t like book subscriptions, they won’t buy/use them. The popularity and success of Kindle Unlimited and your local public library’s ebook borrowing programs just might indicate that the heights (or depths) of traditional publishers are really pretty stupid.