A rant on how a reader behavior survey taken over the space of one month was conflated into an indictment on readers and—bafflingly—libraries. Emily discusses why fingers are being pointed in these particular directions and where they maybe should be pointed instead.

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Welcome to the Hybrid Cub Scout podcast, helping you navigate

the publishing landscape. I'm Em Einolander, and I share

insights, so authors can be successful and safe as they

pursue publishing. I want to make something clear up top. The

Authors Guild does really important advocacy work, and

provides lots of demystifying information. They've been

instrumental in supporting authors regarding the Barts

versus Anthropic lawsuit. They're staying on the ball when

it comes to keeping authors up to date on issues around

generative AI and copyright, and how to avoid publishing scams.

They have a huge author resource library, including resources for

fighting book bans, but tangentially related to that

last point, I have some concerns about a recent positioning

choice they made, and I'm definitely not the only one. At

the beginning of June, just a few days after I released an

episode about DRM, the Authors Guild released a study conducted

in 2025 about reader behavior. To oversimplify before it gets

complicated, the study looked at how many people bought books in

a particular format in a particular month, or if they

didn't buy them, how they got access to said books. This study

was completely different from studies they released in 2018

and 2023 about author earnings, which they reported as in

decline in both areas, but those studies, particularly the 2023

one, mostly focused on the differences between how much

self-published authors made versus traditionally published

ones. I'll link it so you can see for yourself. Now, this is

important. There is no data that actually ties the reader

behavior survey from this year to those author earnings

reports. They are separate studies conducted years apart.

However, in this recent post from the Authors Guild, the way

they summed up this report to people visiting their website,

they specifically tied the 2026 reader behavior study to the

perceived decline in author earnings. When you do this, when

you release a statement about declining author incomes, along

with bar graphs about how many readers are borrowing rather

than buying, you're making a pretty clear statement: it's the

reader's fault that author incomes suck more now, and

furthermore, they made a very interesting choice to highlight

how many people who should be buying books are borrowing them

instead. If you listened to my last episode, you know that

libraries pay and pay dearly for the ebook and audiobook licenses

that are in such heavy usage by the population reached in this

study, but there's still an implication here that these

borrowed books generate zero income for authors, so one of

the major conclusions the Authors Guild seems to have

reached is that the problem with author earnings is that people

use libraries too much. Yes, really, in the year of our

recession, 2026 it's those pesky libraries and those stingy

readers who are ruining authors' careers, and I'll say up front,

there are problematic trends in reader behavior right now, but

they might as well come out and make some whiny 2010s era

millennials are killing the diamond trade article, but more

than anything, it's the fact that authors and publishers are

coming for libraries at this particular point in history that

absolutely blows my mind. It doesn't take a ton of research

to see why a report like this would be positioned this way.

There's heavy influence from the Association of American

Publishers, which has been butting heads with libraries for

years over digital book pricing. We'll get to that, and any

author or publisher can tell you right now how hard it is to sell

books in this current environment and actually make

good money from it, but the positioning that pits authors

and publishers against libraries is pretty damn off-putting. So,

here's what the study actually said, right at the bell, they

come out swinging for readers. The headline for the press

release, or the article released to the public, rather, is only

25% of readers paid for a new copy of a print book or ebook

read in previous month. Here are their key findings. Oh. Overall,

only 36% of people who read a book or listened to an audiobook

in the last month, the last month meaning of the study, in

the last month bought a new book or audiobook or obtained one

through a paid subscription service that generated royalties

for the author in that time. Nearly two thirds purchased

nothing new. So, here's the bit about text formats.

Only 25% of books, ebook and print, read in the last month

were bought new or obtained through a subscription. 19% of

books in text format read in the prior month were bought new. 6%

were obtained through a paid subscription, such as Kindle

Unlimited, which pays much less to authors than buying the book

on its own outside of a subscription service, 10% were

bought used, 29% came from public library borrowing, and 16

were borrowed for free from other sources, including piracy,

and another 19 were from personal collection, so people

actually reading the books they've bought already, which we

like that. Well, as a reader, we do. And yes, I am referring to

the royal we there, I guess. Audio formats: 36% of digital

audio books consumed were either purchased new or accessed

through paid subscriptions like Audible. 37% of digital audio

books were borrowed from libraries, and then 20 27% were

from other sources, including pirated copies. So, for those

curious about the methodology, all of this information was

gathered through an online survey of participants that were

recruited at random from a national consumer panel. It was

fielded from October 20-first to november 6, 2020-five looking at

the previous month's readers who read one or more books, and more

than four books in the entire year, so rigorous comprehensive

data of trends over time, and absolutely not a snapshot of

discretionary spending after back to school and before

Christmas in highly turbulent economic times, not that at all.

So, let's talk about this whole focus on libraries, and I want

to start by reminding you about how much ebook and audiobooks

costs for them. Over the years, there's been notable tension

between publishing companies and libraries regarding digital

books. If you've been following this sort of thing as long as I

have, you might remember back 2018 2019 Macmillan tried to

place an eight week embargo on new ebook releases to libraries,

so the idea was that readers would get too impatient to read

the new release and buy it instead of waiting for two

months or three or whatever, two months for the embargo, and then

however long after that they have to sit on the waiting list,

but they stated the concern as being that a higher number of

readers would switch solely to ebooks because they could quote

unquote get them for free, they're not free. If you want to

look into actual findings regarding libraries and wide

access and availability of books, you can go look at the

archive.org link to the Panorama project that I've included. You

could also go back and listen to Hybrid Pub Scout episode 55

Maybe you've heard of it. Where I interviewed doctors Kathy

Behrens and Rachel Norda from Portland State University, who

conducted research on book accessibility and reader

behavior. That one reviewed a lot more data than from one

month in 2025 and included 2020 reader data, which was the time

where digital library use was intensely ramping up for people

social distancing in their houses. That was also when

Macmillan dropped the embargo using the COVID pandemic, as you

know, an excuse to extend goodwill to the people. I want

you to remember something specific about how libraries

interact with digital books, they are not the same thing as

pirates. They license a specific number of ebooks that can only

be loaned a specific number of times or over a well-defined

time period before the license comes up for renewal. So, for a

single license with a set date of expiration, an ebook from a

big five publisher, and I need to emphasize that this is

basically all big fives. Indie presses are different. An ebook

from them can cost upwards of $50 and an audio book is even

more than that, like $75 on average. So, when a huge book

comes out with a licensing cost that's dependent on the number

of checkouts, libraries are paying for multiple copies and

having to renew those licenses multiple times, that adds up to

1000s of dollars, and as an aside, there's something very

big tech and shitification about this whole thing, every business

person. Heard that your best customer is the one that you

already have.

Libraries are some of the most regular customers a publishing

company can possibly get, but instead of being treated like a

valued regular customer, they're being treated like they're

pirates, they're being treated like the fact that they make

books available more available to people for free, that means

they are devaluing them somehow. And this report seems to be

posed as a big "told you so" and an excuse to lobby against

libraries attempting to get fairer deals, because right now

there are ebook bills across America trying to do just that,

because libraries are public entities, that means they serve

the public good and are funded by the government, mostly other

than donations, which don't, they're a drop in the ocean, so

they're attempting to mitigate their ebook costs through

legislative means, so Connecticut, Rhode Island have

both passed laws, and maybe by now New Jersey as well, but I'm

not 100% sure on that. Depends on when this comes out. They've

passed laws that restrict the types of ebook purchases

libraries can make based on some of the terms I mentioned above

with the publishing companies. So the idea is to make it so

that by law publishers have to bargain with libraries in order

to sell their books to them in the first place, so publishers

are threatening to completely pull their books from

Connecticut libraries, for example. Anonymous members and

not so anonymous members of the Authors Guild are protesting

these laws because they're afraid they're going to suffer

from these lower costs. The bad news is, in some cases they may

be right, but the good news is because of the study we don't

have to guess who they're right about. So one of the major

findings of this study was that the authors whose earnings were

most affected by library usage were what they call quote

unquote brand name authors. So the survey looked at 25 of those

bestselling authors, the big book talk ones, like Colleen

Hoover, the authors of The Romantic See, Hit Zachatar,

Fourth Wing, Sarah J. Maas, and Rebecca Yaros, Stephen King, and

of course a poor little guy named James Patterson, who could

fill an entire library with the number of books he's written or

had written under his name. Patterson has been known for his

support of booksellers. He gives out a scholarship every year to

a bookseller, so you know, and, and, and it was also announced

recently that he's got a new book coming out with mr. Beast,

so what a cool guy, but he wrote an op-ed coming out against the

Rhode Island e-book bill, complaining that it would force

authors and their publishers to license digital books to

libraries on whatever terms the states decide, resulting in

state governments' unprecedented power over how authors

distribute their work and undermining how authors are

compensated for their creative contributions, and by authors he

means him personally. I don't know, maybe if James Patterson

doesn't go hard against ebook legislation, mr. Beast will lock

him in the back rooms until he turns into a cardboard cutout,

or whatever the fuck happens to you in there. I'm just picturing

James Patterson in the back rooms now. Sorry, but I'd say

most people are on my side, at least publicly, about this when

it comes to libraries who've spoken out. Authors Alliance,

ebook study group, obviously the American Library Association. I

think blaming libraries, in particular, and by extension

readers, seems more than a little short-sighted, especially

going back to that best customer framework that I brought up, and

ultimately this is kicking libraries while they're down

already. If your only priority is money, which I know our

entire society is built on right now, of course, you're going to

look at a library and be like, this is bad for everybody,

because people aren't getting money for it, but you know, if

you step back and you think about, you know, humanity and

literacy and life, and all of the things that make it worth

living, libraries are an incredible resource, and one of

the few remaining public goods in the United States.

They prioritize giving people access to books, not because

these people don't want to buy them, it's because a lot of them

can't afford rent or food, and there is an income discussion to

be had a little bit later on, but let's, the basics are kids

need help getting their homework done, and libraries provide a

third space in order for that to happen, people without internet

access often, because they're unhoused, need to come in and

use the internet to access resources, apply for jobs.

People who maybe aren't as tech savvy, the elderly need help

using the internet for other reasons, because that's the only

way you can function in society now. And then there's community

events, summer programs, and there are very few places to go

now where you can just sit and do something without having to

buy a $10 coffee, but really this is one of those situations

where to borrow from the anti-woke movie critics, you

couldn't make that today if you brought legislation asking to

start a library to create a place that provided that many

free public services, they'd laugh you out of the room.

Netflix for books, remember from that last episode, that's what

they want. Buy a subscription to your local library and wait for

the price jack up as they slyly remove books from the shelves,

like Netflix, and maybe even churn out some of their own to

save money. Why not? We've got ChatGPT now telling you the

story of Elias the Lighthouse Keeper. Right now, according to

the ALA, there are 63 different adverse library bills across the

US. Fortunately, a lot of them have been killed, but Moms for

Liberty have not given up yet. There are people who literally

want to make laws that would get librarians arrested for CSAM if

they carry sex education books, or books about race, or books

about queer people. These are direct threats to not only the

library's existence, but the freedom of the librarians to

share vital information that makes our society better and

makes our populace more educated, and the danger to

libraries is not just about things like censorship and

parental rights, it's about the fact that we've created a

cultural environment where providing something valuable for

free sounds like complete gibberish, if not immoral. The

Trump administration completely defunded the Institute of Museum

and Library Services in March 2025 and it took over a year to

reinstate that funding, and if you think that was the last

attempt they'll make, no, you don't. No, you don't think

that's the last attempt they'll make. You can't think that by

now. Please be reasonable. If you care about literacy in this

country, which is not a given at this point, you need to advocate

for libraries. You need to use the libraries and prove that

they're still something that people need, and I'm not under

any illusion that publishing executives are by default

invested in the good of the public. The way that a

capitalistic system views a public good at this point is as

a target and as an inconvenience, but nothing

really brings that into sharper focus to me than making life

harder for libraries during a period of time when they're

under ideological attack. Frankly, if you're coming for

libraries right now as a publisher or author, shame on

you. The shortsightedness of thinking that all that matters

is a library's ability to pay for a book over and over again

won't do publishers any favors, because if your literate

population tanks, which is tanking right now, who is going

to buy your damn books? There are people we need to hold

accountable for low author earnings. There are, because

author earnings are low. It's hard, especially because there's

so many books on the market, and technology is changing so

quickly. Tons of reasons we can talk about them more, but the

people that we need to hold accountable run companies that

report higher earnings year after year, yet somehow that

doesn't reflect in how much money authors are making. If

they're making all this money, where is it going now? Let's,

let's roll back a little bit to talk about this study a little

bit. Speaking of rolling, this line from the article really

spins my bitch wheel. 99 mph.

The survey also found that the readers most likely to borrow

from a library instead of buying a new book are college educated,

employed full time, and earning more than $75,000 a year, not

generally those who cannot afford to buy books, to which I

say, please stand back, like stand back, not just from the

computer, the bookshelf, or the library itself, stand all the

way back across the street, and remember that books are not the

only thing people spend money on, for many people, it's not a

choice between getting a book from the library or buying it in

print, it's a choice between reading the book or not reading

the book at all, and that's regardless of whether the person

in question makes more or less than $75,000 a year, which the

implication that that particular number in a lot of places barely

over the cost of living means someone is more free and by

extension obligated to spend more money on bestselling

authors' books rather than getting them from the library is

more than a little bit offensive to me and the people filling out

the survey in the first. First place are already readers, so

you're complaining about how a small group of people who are

likely already your best customers, aside from libraries,

are choosing to not spend as much money as you would like

them to, rather than looking at the community at large. The

average price for a hardcover book is about $30 that means

when you buy two books brand new, you're spending $60 and

that doesn't include tax. Meanwhile, the average price for

gas is $5 a gallon before taxes. A gallon of milk costs about the

same. Average rent across the country is $2,000 If you're

listening to me right now, you likely don't need me to tell you

how tricky discretionary spending is right now. Let's

think about comp titles. They're the existing titles you use to

take a stab at how well a book will do on the market. You don't

just compare the books to other books when you're pitching them

anymore, you compare them to anything else a person could be

spending their time or money on, so when we're talking about

Netflix, they have famously said that one of their biggest

competitors, one of their biggest comps is sleep, so that

means books are competing with sleep, they're competing with

other streaming services, and it's not just about

entertainment. It means groceries, and rent, and gas,

and afterward activities, and sports uniforms, and all of the

things that parents have to pay for. People are not choosing

between a book and a book, as I said, they're not even choosing

between TikTok and a book, they're choosing between food

and a book, or they're choosing between buying their kids back

to school clothes and a book, and yes, that includes people

making over 75,000 a year, those those Richie riches, as this

study seems to purport, and so let's go all the way back across

the street now, and, and even further, let's, let's go all the

way across town. So, let's look at the book industry. We need to

look at the sales platforms right now. Royalties are pretty

low, especially for these subscription services, and

that's a choice, that's a choice on the part of the platforms.

It's a choice to pay authors so little. Spotify, for instance,

has increased their income from audiobook services within the

last year, and is now raking in $100 million in recurring

revenue from their audiobooks plus program. I'm positive that

the low income that authors and musicians make on Spotify has

nothing to do with the fact that former CEO Daniel Eck has a net

worth of $9.1 billion I'm sure those lower earnings has nothing

to do with the rates that Spotify has decided to pay them.

If you want to see where all this is leading, look at what

they're doing right now to musicians, they're putting

AI-generated songs on playlists that are preexisting, so they

can keep the streaming profits themselves. And don't get me

started on tropic vacation keywords and AI-generated books,

I'm gonna go all Pepe Sylvia on that, and it's, it's maybe a

conspiracy theory, maybe not.

I need to do more research, but I'm sure lower author earnings

have nothing to do with the income of the executives of

HarperCollins holding company, Rupert Murdoch's News Corps, or

the rest of the big five owned by international media

conglomerates and private equity. I'm sure the income of

the people who own these companies has nothing to do with

author earnings. Don't look up those salaries. Look at the

people who are making 75,000 to $80,000 per year and not doing

their part to buy expensive books during a recession during

November. Look at the greedy libraries who want a little

relief from ridiculously high book prices at a time their

budgets are being slashed. Don't look at how funding is being

taken away from public services and concentrated into AI

companies like Open AI, who totally didn't lose $38 billion

last year, and then ask for more. Don't ask about the glut

of slot books made available partially because Van Tropic,

who supposedly is settling with authors, but also make them do

50 perfect cartwheels in a row to access that incredible $2,500

payout per book. Our focus as a country on individual choices

makes us lose track of the systems that are designed to

help billionaires hoard wealth. It makes us fight over scraps

and the fact that people are allergic to systems thinking

makes me want to bash my head against a wall, but I guess

that's just my opinion, man. So, support your local library while

you still can, both digitally and in person. Email me at

[email protected] Yell at me about my filthy mouth. Follow

me on LinkedIn, where I'm M Einolander, and Blue Sky at M I

know, and go read a book for all our sakes,

I