As of November 1, 2019, Macmillan Publishing has placed an embargo on eLending, allowing libraries to purchase only a single copy of a Macmillan eBook in the first eight weeks of release, regardless of demand or the size of the library.
The Wayland Free Public Library is joining other libraries nationwide and locally to protest this action by Macmillan. We have decided to boycott Macmillan eBooks effective March 1, 2020.
Data shows that readers discover new authors in two places: Amazon and the library. The library is popular with readers because it allows them to discover new works without financial risk. Many go on to purchase books from authors they discovered using the library. The Big Five publishers, insofar as they compete with each other, need to have a presence in the library so that their works turn up in the results when readers are browsing for new things to read. If libraries boycott Macmillan, removing its new titles from the search results, then readers will simply discover books by Macmillan’s competitors. Macmillan can’t sustain such a model long-term, especially given that Amazon as a point of discovery is highly problematic for publishers; it competes with them and actively promotes its own products and services on every book search.
If more library systems follow our example, we may have a real chance of collectively overturning the embargo. A successful boycott would mean:
- No other publisher implements an embargo of any type.
- No publisher adds further restrictions to lending models.
- No publisher increases pricing to libraries out of proportion with increases to consumers.
- If enough other libraries join us, Macmillan will drop the embargo.
If a boycott succeeds in showing the publishers that we will not accept embargoes or the damper they create on a vibrant culture of reading, then we will have ultimately done a service not just for Macmillan authors, but all of the authors published by the Big Five. If we don’t boycott and Macmillan is not stopped, it’s very likely they and other publishers will institute longer, more comprehensive embargoes, and titles by those diverse authors will not be available for us to purchase even if we wanted to.
-The Wayland Board of Library Trustees
