At the O’Reilly Media Tools of Change for Publishing conference in New York today, Barbara A. Genco of Library Journal and School Library Journal argued that libraries offer publishers lots of opportunity for eBook sales and marketing.
Genco shared some statistics about library power users to demonstrate the link between library users and book buyers. In the talk she revealed that for almost every two books borrowed, a library patron bought one book.
According to her report, 35 percent of library power users use the library to try out new authors and new genres and 37 percent of these users purchase books that they have borrowed from a library. In addition, eBook users in public libraries read 30 books a year.
These power library users enjoy their books in all formats. “Library users read across formats. They may begin it as a print book, switch to an eBook, then listen to the audio book in the car,” said Genco.
In light of these stats, Genco warned publishers not to let readers become the victims of the library eBook battle.