the cardigan librarian

librarymayhem:

thecardiganlibrarian:

themugglelibrarian:

carrieryan:

I have a new eOriginal short story set in the Forest of Hands and Teeth World coming out on May 14, 2013!  Similar to Hare Moon, this short story, What Once We Feared, will only be available in digital formats and you can get it anywhere ebooks are sold: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books a Million | Google [I’ll add more links as they become available - some sites don’t have a way to pre-order digital works]

What Once We Feared is a 7,000 word story set right at the moment the Return (aka zombie apocalypse) hits and follows a group of teens trying to survive.

SO excited for this!!

Can we talk about the phenomenon of electronic-only low-priced, short-form promotional tie-ins to YA novels? Is there an analog equivalent? How do we feel about this as a trend? How do we handle these in our collection development?

It’s happening with adult authors, too; Lee Child is the first to come to mind. I have patrons who request them and when I tell them it’s in digital format only, they usually respond exasperatedly, because they don’t own a Kindle or a Nook or a whatever. I might be able to license it for my library’s downloadable collection, but even they still wouldn’t have access to it unless I also load it onto a checkoutable eReader for them.

We do circulate preloaded Nooks, so I guess I could pay for five copies of each title and have them on those… But there’s something about this that just makes me bristle. And I don’t mean to single out any authors in particular - it’s just not a publishing trend I have positive feelings for. And who is driving this trend? The authors? Or the publishing companies?

I didn’t know about the adult authors! Our consortium has access to some of these mini teen titles through Overdrive, which is where I first encountered them. (We don’t have checkoutable ereaders, however.)

Right now I’m reading Requiem, and just read Hana, the short tie-in story that (I guess?) precedes it, through Overdrive. And the little story, while an entertaining way to pass the time in waiting for your copy of the anticipated sequel, is definitely not necessary to following the plot of the “real book.” I could see Hana being a fun, almost fan-fiction-y treat for the true Delirium devotee, though.

As a complicating factor, even if budgets allow for the acquisition of these materials, I’m not sure how many teens are into e-reading, even if a fair number of them could theoretically download Kindle apps to their smartphones.