Macmillan will sell e-books to libraries in pilot program at $25 per title

While the e-book market has certainly skyrocketed in recent years, it’s still not always easy to get digital books from your local library. Yet unlike physical books, which obviously degrade over time—digital books won’t. So publishers have figured out that they need to start selling a license to the book, rather than the book itself, to our venerable institutions of public learning.

Back in 2011, HarperCollins caused quite a stir when it said it would impose an arbitrary limit of 26 rentals before an e-book’s license would expire and the library would have to pay for it again.

Now Macmillan, another one of the “Big Six” publishers, announced Thursday its new plan for selling e-books to American public libraries. Macmillan now says its titles will cost $25 (by comparison, some of its same bestselling titles in the Kindle store go for $8 to $12)—and once acquired by a library, each will be available for two years or 52 check-outs, whichever comes first.

The pilot, which will launch later this spring, is set to include “1200 backlist titles from the Minotaur imprint, which handles mysteries and crime fiction,” reports LibraryJournal. The industry publication also reports that Random House remains the only one of the Big Six that doesn’t impose these expiration dates, but it does charge much higher prices.

Allison Lazarus, president of Macmillan’s sales division, told LibraryJournal that this is currently a pilot, and its terms may change.

“We will look at the results throughout the duration of the pilot,” she said, “and will make assessments along the way as to whether to expand the title selection and whether to continue the program as launched beyond the two-year term.”