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E-book library lending in Sweden does not lead to cannibalisation in sales, according to a new study by publisher Natur & Kultur.
In Sweden libraries charge for e-book loans, with publishers free to set prices and proceeds split between publishers and distributor.
So far almost all publishers have enforced a waiting period of up to four months before making new e-books available for e-lending, for fear of the effect on overall sales. But for the past 12 months, Natur & Kultur has been gradually eliminating the waiting period on new releases, then analysing the statistics of loans and sales.
”There is nothing that indicates that the scrapping of waiting periods affects sales negatively,” said John Augustsson, manager of digital projects at Natur & Kultur. Instead, he said the number of e-book loans increased, while sales numbers increased “slightly more” than the loans. However, N&K declined to release exact figures on sales or loans.
Natur & Kultur has now agreed on a new library access model with SKL (the Swedish Association for Local Authorities & Regions), representing public libraries. Using this model, there will be no waiting period for frontlist e-books—but charges will be increased.
”We believe this will increase the interest in e-books among readers, since more and newer titles will now be available”, said Gunilla Glasare, head of development and culture at SKL.
New titles will be priced at 30 SEK (£2.54), titles more than four months old will be priced at 20 SEK (£1.69), and backlist titles (published more than two years ago) at 13 SEK (£1.10). ”In the negotiations with publishers, our goal has been no rising costs for libraries. And with these prices, that works”, said Glasare.
The industry model previously dominant in Sweden was managed by digital distributor Elib, which priced all titles at around 20 SEK per loan. But as e-loans grew, rising costs became a problem, with some libraries temporarily stopping all digital loans, while others ended their contracts with Elib altogether and some switched to the recently launched competing platform Atingo.
This summer, Elib launched a new subscription model offering limited access to a title, with 80% of the fee charged going to the publisher.
Meanwhile earlier this year, publishers Ordfront and Publit also started a joint e-lending trial scheme, in a 20-month project with Stockholm City Library. This scheme is offering e-book loans with no waiting period at 25 SEK (£2.12) for new releases and 15 SEK (£1.27) for backlist titles.