Last week, British children’s author Terry Deary (famous for his Horrible Histories series) declared that public libraries are unnecessary relics of a past age; they cheat authors of their rightful earnings and “are doing nothing for the book industry.”
A few days later, Julia Donaldson, another British children’s author, fired back:
…libraries are the places where our readers and book-buyers are created. Without the huge choice of books which libraries provide, children are not going to discover their favourite authors, and will not then be asking for books for their birthdays or buying them when they are adults with their own money…
An author against libraries seems about as misguided as a singer hoping to smash everyone’s radios. Are there any other anti-library writers out there, or is it just Deary?
One response
This topic came up to me in the Napster days. I didn’t think that was a big deal, and a musician friend quickly retorted with, how would you like it if people read your books for free? Library, doofus!
Authors get paid once for a library book and for any other new book. We don’t get paid for multiple readers or for used copies. I rarely will buy a new book at retail of an author I don’t know. But once I’m hooked, I will buy the next book right away, and also buy more for friends as gifts.
A children’s author may feel differently, as a copy of a book in a grade school library will be read by hundreds of children. I’m sure he’s looking at his royalty statement and multiplying it by 100.
It’s all part of the game. The used book section on Amazon usually has to empty out before someone buys one of my books retail. How many readers do I actually have? I’ll never know.
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