Following on from recent discussion in this column about what it costs libraries to buy the license for e-books, thanks to Jane Friedman for linking to this fascinating article which outlines exactly what libraries would like to see in this regard. What it attempts to describe is what librarians actually mean when they call for fairer pricing from big publishers.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
There are three really interesting points here. First is a distinction between books that librarians value having in their collections because a collection should have it, for which a single license fee is recommended, and high-circulation books.
Second, high-circulation books are divided between adult and younger audiences.
A Proposed Pricing Model
And third, that all brings us to pricing, with a recommendation that publishers offer either a per-use charge of US$1 for adult books and half that for those aimed at younger audiences.
What is really interesting is how this fits in with the freedom we have as indie authors. We can set the per-borrow price a library pays for our work through OverDrive. And as the author of the piece, Michael Blackwell, librarian and organizer of the Readers First Coalition, states librarians want fairer pricing from big publishers so they can spend more of their budget on indie authors, having intel on librarian-friendly pricing feels like a valuable insight.
Commonwealth Prize Takes a Human Approach to AI Verification
I will end with a fascinating insight into what might be coming. You will recall there was a brouhaha after “The Serpent in the Grove” was named as a regional winner (Caribbean) of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. The story was, as per the standard arrangement, published by Granta. And then the allegations of AI use began. The whole affair was so damaging that Granta have ended “external collaborations,” as they phrase it. That is, if they publish anything, they want editorial oversight.
But that's not where it ends. The prize organizers, who initially responded that they fundamentally worked on a trust principle, have carried out an investigation into regional winners before the overall winner is announced. They have concluded that they are satisfied none has used AI.
What is really noteworthy is how they did it. They state they have not used AI detectors. Instead they have spoken to writers about the creative process, and asked to see evidence such as time-stamped drafts (heaven help the pantsers). It's not a scalable approach. But it's an old-school and humane one.
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