Librarians are fighting a nationwide battle against high e-book prices, which so far has yielded minimal results. Despite efforts and temporary legislative victories, strict renewal and loan policies imposed by publishers keep e-book costs high, limiting the number of popular titles libraries can offer and leading to frustration among patrons. Axios reports: Publishers typically require libraries to renew the license to each e-book every two years, or after 26 loans -- policies that libraries call prohibitively expensive. This restricts the number of e-books -- particularly popular bestsellers -- that they can lend out to patrons, who are angry and baffled by the limitations. Readers love the free (to them) apps that allow them to borrow countless e-books and audiobooks: Libby (the dominant one, run by OverDrive) and hoopla. But some libraries say that the cost of renewing their contracts with OverDrive and hoopla are prohibitive, so they're dropping the apps -- hoopla in particular. The Association of American Publishers argues that it must protect the rights of copyright owners -- that is, authors -- to be fairly compensated for their work. hoopla and Libby say they're just the middlemen. "It's really not up to us, to be honest," Ann Ford, a vice president at hoopla, tells Axios. "It's the publishers that make the rules." Libraries have a "unique and determinative public mission" that should entitle them to more favorable e-book purchasing terms when using public funds, says Kyle Courtney, a lawyer and Harvard librarian who drafted model e-book legislation for states. "These are nonnegotiable contracts, and the libraries have been trying to get a deal for years. We need the coercive power of the state sitting behind us at the table saying, 'We need a special slice of the pie.'"

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The U.S. publishing industry is driven by celebrity authors and repeat bestsellers, according to testimony from a blocked merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. Only 50 authors sell over 500,000 copies annually, with 96% of books selling under 1,000 copies. Publishing houses spend most of their advance money on celebrity books, which along with backlist titles like The Bible, account for the bulk of their revenue and fund less commercially successful books.

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An anonymous reader writes: More books were called to be banned in 2023 across US schools and libraries than any other year on record, according to a new report from the American Library Association (ALA). Building on a surge that started in 2021, some 4,240 unique book titles were challenged last year -- a 65% increase from 2022, and the highest figure documented in over 20 years of tracking. Although the number of affected titles has grown dramatically, as groups increasingly target multiple books at once, overall censorship demands dropped slightly, down 2% to 1,247. Literature concerning race and gender was particularly contested, with autobiographical graphic novel Gender Queer named the most challenged library book of the year.

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