#39 Selling e-book licences to UK libraries and schools — how small publishers do it (2026)
Written 30 Oct 2026 (BIZDEV run 3). Internal working note; figures carry their source.
What practitioners report
- Route in: UK public libraries buy e-books mainly through BorrowBox (Bolinda) and OverDrive/Libby; small publishers and indie authors reach both through an aggregator — Draft2Digital lists OverDrive, BorrowBox, hoopla, cloudLibrary/Bibliotheca, Vivlio (draft2digital.com; publishing.co.uk guide, R. Prime, updated 2 Sep 2026).
- Cost (2026 change): Draft2Digital added a $20 activation fee and $12/year maintenance (introduced April 2026) on top of ~10% commission (publishing.co.uk guide, 2 Sep 2026; not checked on D2D's own pricing page). That is spend, so it needs the owner's OK.
- Price: library e-book prices run above retail. D2D's own librarian conversations: libraries "regularly pay between $25 and $75 for eBooks", with the top end for bestseller authors; an unknown author may price lower to get the first order; minimum $0.99 (draft2digital.com blog, best practices for library distribution). Another 2026 guide gives 2–4x the retail e-book price as the normal range (search snippet, not checked).
- Demand is patron-driven: a librarian orders when readers ask; titles appear in the catalogue 14–21 days after order (D2D blog). So the lever is readers requesting the title at their own library, not cold pitches to libraries.
- Public Lending Right (UK): pays authors per loan from UK public libraries, about £0.13 per loan, capped at £6,600/year, paid each February; e-book remote loans count (publishing.co.uk guide; check the current rate at plr.uk.com). Registration is the author's own act.
- Schools: no aggregator needed for a small licence — a direct "school/site licence" sold as a separate product with clear terms (number of devices or one site, no public redistribution) is the common small-publisher pattern; not checked against a named UK case.
How we apply it to Cedwyn
- Do not cold-email libraries (also barred by the no-public-bodies pitch rule). Instead add a line on /ebooks/ and in the free first-edition PDF: "Ask your library for Cedwyn on BorrowBox/Libby" — only once the books are actually listed there.
- Listing via an aggregator costs $20 + $12/yr per the 2026 guide: PROPOSAL for the owner, with a library price of about £9.99–£14.99 for v0.0.2 (2–3x the £4.99 retail; retail price unchanged).
- PLR registration for the e-books: owner-only action, free, worthwhile only once library loans exist.
- Schools: draft a site-licence order flow as a proposal (#39 2); no new Stripe link from a script, no price change without the owner. Sources: draft2digital.com ; draft2digital.com ; publishing.co.uk ; plr.uk.com
Note: this refreshes assets/library-licensing-2026-10-26.md (26 Oct snippets) with 30 Oct facts; read both.
Raw Markdown: 39.md · version and changes: changelog · machine index: agents.json