PUBLISHER PRICE WATCH METHODOLOGY

OverDrive prices

Using the Advanced Search functionality on OverDrive, we search for all titles by format and publisher account with a street date in the last year, sorted by popularity across libraries. From the results, we select 20 titles by unique authors in order of popularity and record the price of the standard OverDrive license. If multiple licenses models are offered, we make a note of it. In Excel, we calculate the average OverDrive price on the 20 titles for each format. For example, the average OverDrive price on 20 eBook titles from Sourcebooks is $14.74.

Physical format prices

We look up each of the twenty titles on Amazon. For eBooks, we record the Amazon retail price of the print equivalent as well as noting the Kindle price. For eAudiobooks, we record the retail price of the eAudiobook from Audible. We then calculate an average retail price for all 20 titles. The average retail price for our 20 Sourcebook titles is $11.08.

Markup

We use the retail prices to calculate how much publishers are marking up their library licenses and to get an idea of their baseline costs and how much they are profiting from libraries. The retail prices can vary widely. For example, the average retail price of an eAudio title from Dreamscape Media when we pulled this data was $34.33 and the library license was $73.24. So Dreamscape Media is roughly doubling their retail prices with libraries. By contrast, the average retail price of a Scholastic eAudiobook is $15.68 while their library eAudio license is $68.84. Scholastic is charging libraries less than Dreamscape, but quadrupling their library prices, so arguably, Scholastic is not the library-friendly company in this comparison.

Assessing value

Our value assessment depends on whether or not a digital book license expires.

Expiring licenses:

Most digital book licenses expire after 24 months and can be loaned, exactly like print, to one reader at a time. Since a 24-month (or 26 checkout) lifespan is measurably shorter than a print book’s lifespan in a library (seven years on average at Whatcom County Library System), a digital book license that expires should never cost a library more than its print equivalent and arguably should cost less. Therefore, RF considers overpriced the expiring licenses that costs more than the print equivalent.

  • Prices on 24-month or 26-circ expiring licenses that cost more than retail are RF Not Recommended. Retail prices vary a good deal, from less than $10 from Scholastic to $25 for eAudiobooks from indie publishers. We are being generous in using an upper limit of $25 as a reasonable price for an expiring license.

  • License terms rating an RF Good Buy designation would be better than the print equivalent, for example, a 10-year license for a print-equivalent price. License terms rating RF Recommended are print-like, for example, a 7-year license for a print-equivalent price.

Perpetual licenses:

The value of a perpetual license depends greatly on a the popularity or importance that a selector anticipates for a book. In general, if the book is one that the selector foresees replacing in print at least once, then a price up to twice retail is a good value. If the book is one that the selector foresees replacing in print at least twice, then a price up to three times over retail is a good value. For example, The Madness of Crowds, 17th in the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny, is $69.99 on a perpetual eAudio license from Macmillan. It is a reasonable value because this series has proven so popular. Such pricing may also be worthwhile on durably popular authors, like Ann Patchett, on award-winning books, or must-have items in the collection like Fahrenheit 451.

Roughly, RF assesses value as follows:

  • If a publisher offers perpetual licenses less than $30 (roughly the cost of retail), it is an RF Good Buy.

  • If a publisher offers perpetual licenses between $30 -$60 (roughly double the cost of retail), it is RF Recommended, especially for popular or important books.

  • For perpetual licenses between $60 - $90, it depends on the title. For durably popular books, these may “pencil out” eventually. For flashes in the pan, they are not a good value.

  • Perpetual licenses exceeding $90 are RF Not Recommended as there are very few titles so perpetually popular that we would spend that much money to keep a copy in the print collection.