With Macmillan taking a stance against libraries with their new eBook embargo, I have decided that I will not be purchasing any Macmillan (and their imprints) books until two months after publication. This is one of the hardest decisions I had to make because I love Macmillan. Some of my favorite books are published under St. Martin’s Press and Tor.
I am Macmillan’s ideal customer. I am never one to hesitate to buy their books. In my personal library, I have over 600 physical books and over 10,000 eBooks. Growing up, I never got to own a book, so now, I’m one-click happy. I buy the ebook if it sounds interesting. If I’m honest about my spending habits, I spend about 1/5th of my paycheck on books. By making it harder for libraries to get eBooks, they have alienated me as a buyer & consumer.
You want to know what happens when I borrow a book from the library and love it? I buy it. I am so disheartened that I have had to take this stance. I love supporting authors, and I love watching them succeed, but I have to put my money where my mouth is.
So, to the authors who are repped by Macmillan. I love you, and I’m so sorry that I had to make this choice. I will read your books, I am sure I will love them, and I will scream about how much I love them after the two months is over.
Kristy
An Overcaffeinated Fae
Here is a list of Macmillan’s imprints that I found on their website so that I can remember who they are:
Adult Trade:
- Farrar, Straus & Giroux
- North Point Press,
- Hill and Wang,
- Faber and Faber Inc.,
- Books for Young Readers
- First Second
- Henry Holt
- Metropolitan Books,
- Times Books,
- Holt Paperbacks,
- Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
- Macmillan Audio
- Picador
- St Martin’s Press
- Griffin,
- Minotaur,
- All Points Books,
- Castle Point Books,
- St. Martin’s Press Paperbacks,
- Let’s Go,
- Thomas Dunne Books,
- Truman Talley Books,
- Tor/Forge,
- Starscape,
- Tor Teen Books,
- Flatiron Books,
- Macmillan Collector’s Library,
- Celadon Books
Children’s
- Farrar, Straus & Giroux for Young Readers
- Feiwel & Friends
- Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
- Imprint
- Kingfisher
- Odd Dot
- Priddy Books
- Roaring Brook Press
- Square Fish
- Tor Children’s
College & Academic
- Macmillan Learning
- Bedford/St. Martin’s,
- Hayden-McNeil,
- W. H. Freeman,
- Worth Publishers
Magazines & Journals
- Nature
- Scientific American
Distributed Publishers <– I am not sure if these publishers are involved, but until I get a direct answer, I’m treating them just like Macmillan.
- Bloomsbury USA
- The College Board
- Drawn and Quarterly
- Graywolf Press
- Papercutz
- Page Street Publishing Co.
- Entangled Publishing
- Guinness World Records
- Media Lab Books
Thank you for posting this! I support this fully. I’m also the reader who has always read a book through my library first and bought it if I loved it. But Macmillan has alienated readers like me with their greed. I couldn’t have said this better myself. 💕
It truly is disheartening to see their stance.
I had no idea this was going on! Thank you for letting us know! What a terrible thing they are doing.
I hope they realize that libraries aren’t competition.
Good for you! And thank you for the list of other publishers that are their imprints.
Thanks! Glad to help get the imprint list together.
Oh no! Thanx for sharing this info!
You’re welcome!
As a former librarian, I 100% agree with you. I live in a really small town, with a small library that was already struggling to buy books. I donate to them as much, and as often, as possible. This just hurts my heart for the libraries and patrons.
It is a shame that they took this stance. I hope they realize that libraries aren’t competition.
Thanks for sharing the imprints, I had no idea there were so many. There is no reason to deny readers ebooks just because they read them through the library.
I agree, I could understand if the library didn’t purchase the book but to not even allow a library to purchase more than 1 book in the first two months is ridiculous.
This is awful! Although I mostly read ARCs, I constantly grab books related to series I review from my library network via Hoopla or OverDrive. This is very disconcerting.
It really is sad that one of the big 5 publishers has decided that libraries are competition.
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for this post. I’m a librarian and an avid ebook reader and this is something that needs to be known and understood by readers. Digital licencing has been so weirdly unregulated from the beginning and seeing big publishers who should be leading the game abusing this gap is heartbreaking. Everyone involved should be doing better.
I hope the attention from this boycotting of Macmillan by libraries brings the issue to the forefront and makes publishers of ebooks really consider how they are approaching digital licensing with libraries.
I really hope that Macmillan starts to realize that libraries are not competition. I figured this was a way I could put my money where my mouth is.
Oh wow I didn’t even know this was happening thank you so much for sharing this info with us.
I tagged you here http://mybookworld24.com/2019/11/17/blogger-recognition-award/
Great post. Thanks for the information.