eBooks Letter Campaign

Email, write or call these publishers to let them know what you think about their restrictive policies for selling e-Books to the Fresno County Public Library. Or write to your favorite author care of their publisher. Feel free to copy, edit, or share these sample letters.

Macmillan Publishing 175 First Avenue New York, NY 10010 (888) 330-8477 customerservice@mpsvirginia.com	Hachette Book Group 237 Park Avenue New York, NY 10017 (212) 364-1100 www.hachettebookgroup.com/customer_contact us
Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 (212) 698-7000 www.simonandschuster.com/about/contact_us	Penguin Group 375 Hudson Street New York, NY 10014 (212) 366-2000 ecommerce@us.penguingroup.com
Random House 1745 Broadway New York, NY 10019 (212) 782-9000 www.randomhouse.com/about/contact.html	HarperCollins Publishers 10 East 53rd Street New York, NY 10022 (212) 207-7000 feedback2@harpercollins.com

Sample Letter to a Publisher

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am a customer of Fresno County Public Library in California. I am writing to express my disappointment with your unwillingness to sell or license eBooks to public libraries and/or any restrictive pricing or usage policies you may impose on public libraries when they purchase eBooks. Through these restrictive practices, you are denying me and other library users equal access to books. I do not believe a publishing company should restrict access to information through the public library based solely on a book’s format.

Sincerely,

Sample Letter to an Author

Ms./Mr. (insert author’s name);

I am a customer of Fresno County Public Library in California. As an avid reader I am concerned with your publisher’s policy regarding the sale of eBooks to public libraries. Over the last two years, the demand for eBooks has grown by leaps and bounds, and many library patrons are moving to eReaders as their choice for content delivery. Access to eBooks through libraries should be viewed by authors and publishers as desirable — it means more readers will find your titles and have the opportunity to discover new authors.

I understand that publishers are nervous about their property and intellectual rights — and authors are, too. There is already a secure DRM (Digital Rights Management) solution in use by all providers of e-content to libraries. What is hard for me to understand is why your publisher finds making your works available to libraries at a reasonable price to be an unacceptable business model. Particularly since recent studies confirm what libraries have known all along, that people who borrow library books also buy them – in every format.

I would ask you, as a prominent author, to bring pressure to bear on your publisher to open their e-content to public libraries and at a fair price without a lot of restrictive usage policies. Libraries have a long tradition in this country of significant contributions to our national love of reading and books (in any format). I hope that the authors, like yourself, that I have enjoyed over the years will speak out in favor of making all published works available for purchase by libraries at reasonable cost.

Thank you for your consideration of this issue.

Sincerely,