eBooks - OverDrive Blog from January, 2012

After this month of bad news for publishers and Overdrive, at least one publisher that's not in Overdrive is reconsidering that position.

• For better or worse, predictions are officially coming in that Amazon will be jumping in the library lending game soon, too.
• Did you know that someone buys a romance novel every 5 seconds and that its one of the leading genres in eBook sales?
• Amazon's lending service is increasing sales for authors, not decreasing it as publishers seem to have claimed.
• The top 5 pirated books are available in Overdrive.
• Amazon made a deal for print copies of their books.
• Nancy Pearl is partnering with Amazon.
• Amazon is having some problems with pirating.
• eBooks have out-sold print on the USA Today Bestseller List
  

I just got an e-mail containing the following information:

Effective immediately, Penguin Group has suspended the availability of download audiobook titles for library purchase across all vendors. This change does not affect any Penguin audiobook titles currently in your library's catalog. Your library will be able to purchase additional copies of titles released before 11/14/2011. However, titles released after this date and new releases will not be available, per instruction from the publisher.

If you have questions or comments, please contact Erica Glass at Penguin Group directly: Erica.glass@us.penguingroup.com.  

I'm not sure if this is related to Penguin's recent issues with Kindle books.

I received the following in an e-mail this morning, announcing that this new feature will be implemented tomorrow:

'Recommend to Library' Manager (RTL) for Patron Drive Acquisition:

With the 'WIN' Catalog (opt-in), users will be able to view and recommend titles from publishers' entire catalogs; even titles the library has not yet purchased. This patron-driven acquisition tool will be controlled by the 'Recommend to Library' (RTL) Manager. With 'RTL' Manager, you can measure readers' interest and either manually select title by title or automatically purchase the most requested titles not already in your collection. You can also set variables to control the number and frequency of requests per patron.

I have no further details at this time. I will follow up tomorrow with more information as I have it.

Brilliance Audio will no longer be available through Overdrive. Overdrive released the following information:

January 31, 2012, as instructed by the publisher, BrillianceAudio will suspend the availability of all download audiobook titles for library purchase across all vendors. This change does not affect any titles currently in your library's catalog. You will not, however, be able to add any additional copies. If you have questions or comments, you can reach BrillianceAudio directly at AskSales@brillianceaudio.com or 800.648.2312.