Draft2Digital Adds Overdrive to the Fold

14 thoughts on “Draft2Digital Adds Overdrive to the Fold”

1. we dropped out of overdrive a couple years ago re audio. They are taking a lion’s share for doing something one time and then no more. 55%+/-, no. They are like book agents, taking a gulp when a sip of the authors’ proceeds would do.

   Id wait until someone does a 70-30 split or 80-20, and see too if AMZ will offer that themselves in addition to what they already offer re libraries.

   YMMV

   Democritus is accurate: POD may be far better for finding readers for one’s work.

   • Did not realize that. Thanks for the advice.

2. At least in our library system, the most likely way for an new indie author to get into a public library is through print on demand. It’s easier for an acquisitions librarian to put in an order to Ingram or Amazon for a single copy of a book from a new and unknown author than it is to subscribe to a book through OverDrive. Circulating books through OverDrive is more expensive than paper and the demand for eBooks is high, so the acquisitions people tend to stick to sure hits with their eBook budget.

   Our library system is eager to acquire books from local authors and gives them special consideration. Look on your local library web site and you may find that they have a special provision for local authors. I’ve been told that the biggest barrier to placing local authors on library shelves is spines without titles, pages without numbers, and massive typos, which is a pretty low bar.

   Library patrons are some of the most voracious readers in the world. If a book is on library shelves it is almost certain to be read several times, which could be what a starting author needs to get their ball rolling.

   When your book is acquired, the library will probably put it into BiblioCommons, which is the electronic catalog that most library patrons see on line. That makes it easier for other libraries to see and decide to acquire a book.

   • Thanks for the insider’s perspective, Democritus.

   • I’ve tried. Been turned down by my county library system two or three times now.

     • Different libraries have different policies. My advice is to do all you can to make it easy for them to acquire your book. The labor costs in acquiring a book (cataloging it and making it shelf-ready) can easily be greater than the cost of the book itself. Therefore, even a free book has to be considered carefully. Our acquisitions librarians tell me that going through CreateSpace and taking the option for extended distribution will decrease the acquisition cost of a book. I’m imagine other print-on-demand services exist that are equally helpful.

       Many librarians seem to have a special gene that makes them fall over backwards to be helpful. If you haven’t already, you might ask them why your book was not accepted. You might get some useful advice. (That applies to all starting authors– ask a librarian about the appeal of the books you write. Part of their job is to know about what their readers want to read. Their perspective is different because are coaxing people to use a free service, not sell books. Not necessarily a better perspective, but distinctly different with different insights.)

       I can tell you that libraries tend to be inundated with donations of books. Very few direct donations go on library shelves because the library usually already has as many copies as they need of each donated book. Most donated books go to used book sales that benefit the library in other ways. If your book falls into that river, it may never get to the collections person who might approve it for acquisition.

       • One library local to me did a renovation, saved their old book return slot and turned it into a book donation slot. Like many FOL organizations in my area they have a large semi-permanent area that is always full of books even though they have regular sales where they do their best to get rid of everything, even to the point of selling a grocery bag full for $5.00. Extrapolate this out to every library system in a large metro area, then to every metro area, and combine it with other charities and used book stores and you wind up with an absolutely gigantic ocean of paper sloshing around out of the sight of “produce model” publishers. It is this ocean that flows into the warehouses of the penny sellers and rains down upon us as Amazon used book offerings.

         I’ve… digressed, haven’t I.

       • Yeah, I didn’t want to say this until I read Elise’s comment, but honestly, I don’t think they want my books because I’m an indie. “Local author” goes nowhere unless said author is published by one of the Big 5. The librarians behind the desk are eager and happy to see me in the library, but they’re not the ones who decide which books go on the shelves. I figure three strikes I’m out. I tried three times, twice with two different people and the third as a local author for just the shelf in my branch. No go every time. Also, no word whatsoever, even though I left my contact info each time. Seriously doubt they’re going to tell me why, or that it’s going to be anything meaningful.

     • I’ve had the same experience. My library is not interested in indie books at all.

       • Here comes another long one from DJ. Sigh. I feel compelled to say more about indies and libraries. Our system is not antagonistic to indies at all, but it does not surprise me that some libraries are. It also would not surprise me if some indies get an impression that a library is antagonistic when it is not.

         Personnel costs are at the heart of the problem. In our system, and I suspect most library systems, personnel is around 70% of our yearly budget, collections about 10%. The remaining 20% keeps the lights on, the computers running, the doors open, overhead similar to most businesses. Unlike a business, our mission is measured by community satisfaction with our services, not profits.

         As a trustee, my goal is to ensure that every tax penny we spend goes toward maximizing the quality and quantity of the services we provide the community. I watch metrics like circulation, door counts, program attendance, and web site visits like a hawk. And I try to make sure that the staff is aware that I am watching. Nothing special, just basic management.

         If indie books take more staff time, cost more to process, and circulate less than traditionally published books, the staff would feel pressure not to acquire them. On the other hand, many librarians and trustees, like myself, feel that promoting local authors and authorship in general is yet another element in the library service portfolio and deserves some consideration. How much consideration and what form it takes varies widely.

         Indie books have some strikes against them. Vanity press books are the bane of libraries. We dislike them as much as most authors do. Twenty years ago, all independently published books undeservedly suffered from the vanity press stigma. The stigma has diminished greatly. BookList, a go-to source of reviews for acquisitions librarians, now reviews independently published books. Many librarians watch the Amazon rankings and reviews as closely as authors watch them. But the stigma lingers; old habits of mind die hard.

         A second strike is in the book distribution system. As few as five years ago, I got a litany of difficulties with ordering, purchasing, and cataloging when I asked an acquisitions librarian about independently published books. A single independently published book from outside the usual distribution channels used to take hours to process instead of the minutes that a “normal” book took. I am told that acquiring indies has gotten much easier recently. Ingram Spark has helped, Amazon CreateSpace has helped, the channels are normalizing. However, I am not sure all acquisitions departments are aware of the changes. They are learning, but institutional inertia is what it is.

         Finally, I think we all know that indie quality is uneven. Traditional publishing is no quality guarantee, but trad books are somewhat more likely to meet minimum standards for formatting and proofreading than indies. I will hazard that the number of acceptable indie books published each year has soared in the last few years, but I am not sure that the percentage of acceptable books has increased with the growth of the indie pool. Consequently, established indie authors probably have far fewer problems getting into libraries now, but newcomers still struggle.

         Yeah. Some libraries still resist indie authors, but I think the situation is improving. My best advice to newcomers is to seek out a librarian and make your case to them directly. If you have a good book, I think the odds are in your favor.

         • I’m not a newcomer. I have four of five books in my series out and have sold over a thousand copies. My library doesn’t seem to care about that.

         • Democritus Jr., thank you for taking the time to share some insider knowledge. I always look forward to your posts here. 🙂

           (Before today, I had no idea hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was a thing. Yikes.)

         • I’m a school librarian and agree with your posts, DJ. In a more general sense, my colleagues are ignorant of the indie publishing revolution. For collection development, we rely heavily on traditional resources such as School Library Journal, Kirkus reviews, Etc. We serve K-12 students and need to be able to access reliable indicators of a book’s quality and suitability for our students. Collection development is a time consuming research process even with the necessary editorial reviews to hand. The additional research needed to integrate self published books into my collection on any kind of scale is just out of the question. Furthermore, I rely on shelf-ready books from a school library vendor. Self published books which are not part of that ecosystem place additional strain on resources. I say all of this as an indie author who is staunchly in favour of self publishing and who tries to raise awareness of the indie revolution among my fellow librarians. I feel that our libraries will fall behind if we don’t keep abreast of changes.

3. I have been waiting for this. Now to see if it helps get my books out there.

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