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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Bob WEFs podcast. My guest today is

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Speaker 1: Steve Hotel, President CEO of Overdrive. Steve, what exactly is Overdrive?

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Speaker 2: Bob?

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Speaker 3: Overdrive is a mission based company that has, over the

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Speaker 3: last forty years been one of the pioneers in the

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Speaker 3: new format of reading books on the screen, which we

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Speaker 3: all know today as an ebook, as well as digital

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Speaker 3: audio books that you could listen to anytime, anywhere while

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Speaker 3: you're walking or in the car commuting. And as a result,

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Speaker 3: the Overdrive business has become the single largest supplier of

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Speaker 3: digital books to schools, libraries, universities, and other institutions globally.

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Speaker 2: As a result of this work.

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Speaker 3: Over the list twenty five to twenty five plus years.

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Speaker 1: Okay, just to sort of define what's going on here,

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Speaker 1: are clear things up. If I am getting a book

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Speaker 1: from Amazon, I'm buying the book. Are you involved in

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Speaker 1: that transaction at all?

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Speaker 2: No.

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Speaker 3: When you are buying an ebook from Amazon, you're purchasing

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Speaker 3: an ebook in their Kindle format, either to read on

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Speaker 3: an ein Kindle device or to read on a tablet

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Speaker 3: or your phone on the Kindle app. So Amazon has

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Speaker 3: built their own ecosystem and a proprietary file format, the

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Speaker 3: Kindle format. They built their business on some of the

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Speaker 3: earlier work that Overdrive did. Because Kindle was introduced by

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Speaker 3: Amazon in two thousand and seven. Oversdrive started digitizing books

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Speaker 3: on floppy diskets in the nineteen eighties. So I am

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Speaker 3: the proud recipient of an honor in this industry. I've

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Speaker 3: been part of more digital book failures than any person

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Speaker 3: alive because I started too early putting books on floppy diskets,

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Speaker 3: and then a decade on CD RAM and by the

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Speaker 3: late nineties mid nineties, when this Internet thing showed it

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Speaker 3: had some promise, Overdrive was the pioneers that helped create

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Speaker 3: the environment for the ebook and the audiobook markets today.

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Speaker 3: So we've been into this business much longer than most

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Speaker 3: and we participate in many aspects of it. But Amazon

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Speaker 3: is a direct to consumer closed system.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so what format do you distribute books in?

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Speaker 3: We distribute books in most of the popular open industry standards,

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Speaker 3: and there is an industry standard that has evolved as

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Speaker 3: a result of overdrives participation twenty five years ago, when

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Speaker 3: this nascent book end was trying to see about how

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Speaker 3: they might grow a digital electronic book future. Today it's

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Speaker 3: known as epop EPUB, and that is a global acronym,

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Speaker 3: just like your listeners would be familiar with the MP

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Speaker 3: three file format. It's an open industry standard that allows

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Speaker 3: any content creator to package their written work in a

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Speaker 3: digital container and make it broadly available for retail booksellers

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Speaker 3: for their own website, and it could be used by

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Speaker 3: thousands of devices and reading apps. That is kind of

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Speaker 3: the ubiquitous ebook standard today, and that's for books and

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Speaker 3: texts and images you read on a screen in the

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Speaker 3: audio space. Overdrive has its own proprietary apps, but it

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Speaker 3: is all really based upon the original audio files we

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Speaker 3: get from the audio publishers and their suppliers, and we

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Speaker 3: are leveraging some of the open industry standards and then

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Speaker 3: applying as required by the rights holders the controls that

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Speaker 3: manage access copyright digital rights management. So we are based

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Speaker 3: on open industry standards and then to meet the requirements

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Speaker 3: of the rights holders, we utilize copyright protection tools.

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Speaker 1: Okay, if I'm a user and I own a computer,

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Speaker 1: can I write something and turn it into EPUB format?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely.

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Speaker 3: EPUB has been an adopted industry wide standard for mobile

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Speaker 3: online reading for now, going back twenty plus years. Many

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Speaker 3: of the tools like Microsoft Office and Word will allow

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Speaker 3: you to take a word document and save it as

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Speaker 3: an EPUB. Now EPUB actually in the technical stance is

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Speaker 3: a variety of what's called XHTML. So the web standards

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Speaker 3: of XML, HTML and many of the open metadata standards

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Speaker 3: of the Internet are also utilized in the in the

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Speaker 3: ebook world in the epook standard. So there's free tools

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Speaker 3: to take your web content. There are many tools to

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Speaker 3: convert a PDF into epub, and there are lots of

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Speaker 3: service based industries working inside publishing houses or as a

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Speaker 3: service bureau to help content creators and publishers transition their

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Speaker 3: files into an ebook marketplace.

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Speaker 1: Okay, needless to say, publishers own the rights. What is

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Speaker 1: the relationship between overdrive and publishers.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to just comment on your statement. Publishers

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Speaker 3: own the rights to distribute and merchandise and build you know,

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Speaker 3: the market, and promote and.

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Speaker 2: Sell the books.

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Speaker 3: But the ownership of the rights is a little bit

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Speaker 3: more diverse. We see that today's world authors sometimes still

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Speaker 3: control all of the rights. So our relationship, as you

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Speaker 3: appropriately stated, is with publishers, aggregators, or in some limited cases,

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Speaker 3: we work directly with the publisher to get permission for

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Speaker 3: the digital book file to have overdrives right to sell it,

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Speaker 3: market it, and fulfill it worldwide based on the permissions granted.

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Speaker 3: And I know your audience is very familiar with the

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Speaker 3: complexity of the music space and copyright and mechanical and

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Speaker 3: license fee and royalties. There is a similar hierarchy and

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Speaker 3: rights structure in publishing, less complicated than music. I'll thankfully say,

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Speaker 3: but for every title, Overdrive seeks permission from the rights holder.

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Speaker 3: And let's just say it's a publisher like Penguin, Random

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Speaker 3: House or Simon and Schuster, that they are giving us

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Speaker 3: the rights to the Stephen King novel that we could

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Speaker 3: sell in the territories where they have the permissions. So

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Speaker 3: for let's say Simon and Schuster us they may give

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Speaker 3: us a new Stephen King novel, and those permissions may

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Speaker 3: be granted for North America. Because Stephen King and his

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Speaker 3: agent may have done a deal for ebook distribution in London,

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Speaker 3: or in Germany or in Australia with a different publisher,

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Speaker 3: we have to go in every territory to those that

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Speaker 3: have the rights to distribute the work in the territory.

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Speaker 3: And then similarly, we work with the publisher to get

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Speaker 3: the permission on how they want to enable access for

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Speaker 3: the institutional buyer and what rights they have with that

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Speaker 3: digital file. I know that sounds like it's complex, and

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Speaker 3: unfortunately it is.

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Speaker 2: But we are best known, BOB.

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Speaker 3: For the dramatic adoption of ebook and audiobook usage from

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Speaker 3: our nation's public libraries. So I'm going to use that

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Speaker 3: as a use case to kind of bring down to

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Speaker 3: you more day to day how this impacts your listeners.

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Speaker 3: Let's say you hear about a new bestseller that you're

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Speaker 3: excited to listen to on your commute to work, and

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Speaker 3: you're in love with audiobooks, And yes, we do educate

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Speaker 3: millions of listeners that instead of paying for a subscription

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Speaker 3: and a credit card and ads, your public library is

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Speaker 3: an unbelievable, untapped off in resource for access to lifelong books.

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Speaker 3: For free ebooks you can read on your kindle, Audiobooks

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Speaker 3: you can listen to on your commute or on your walk,

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Speaker 3: or on your tablet. And so if you are a

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Speaker 3: patron of a public library, as public library patrons have

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Speaker 3: been doing for one hundred and almost two hundred years

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Speaker 3: in this country, you walk into a public library if

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Speaker 3: there's a popular book, they may have enough units and

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Speaker 3: it's available for you to borrow now. And in the

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Speaker 3: physical print world, if there's if it's in demand and

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Speaker 3: they're all checked out, you would add yourself to a

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Speaker 3: wait list or place a hold, and when the book

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Speaker 3: becomes available, the library would notify you your books available,

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Speaker 3: pick it up. We have created a replication of that

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Speaker 3: experience going to your digital virtual branch online searching and

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Speaker 3: browsing for a book of interest, and with one click

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Speaker 3: you can immediately borrow the book. But for let's say

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Speaker 3: this Stephen King new novel, Simon and Schuster as others,

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Speaker 3: have created permissions that if a user if an institution

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Speaker 3: and bob you're in the Los Angeles area and we

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Speaker 3: have a dramatic, fabulous partnership with the Los Angeles Public Library.

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Speaker 3: So if a listener is going to Los Angeles Public

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Speaker 3: Library excited about the new Stephen King, Simon and Schuster book,

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Speaker 3: they may see that the library has of the e

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Speaker 3: book or the audiobook, one hundred copies of the e

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Speaker 3: book one hundred copies of the audiobook, depending.

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Speaker 2: On when they check it in.

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Speaker 3: They may see that they're all checked out, and in

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Speaker 3: our app called Libby, and the app is free and

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Speaker 3: the books are free from.

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Speaker 2: Your library Libb Libby.

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Speaker 3: They may see they're all checked out and you are

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Speaker 3: number fifty two on the wait list. Libby will also

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Speaker 3: say you have approximately like a one week wait. So

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Speaker 3: we have replicated the experience that in the sense where

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Speaker 3: the publisher and the permissions are to only sell the

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Speaker 3: library a number of units, they mandate that for every

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Speaker 3: unit the library buys, just like physical one person can

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Speaker 3: borrow at a time. If that is the model that

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Speaker 3: the library acquires the book under the ebook or the audiobook, well,

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Speaker 3: then the experience is very similar to the print or

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Speaker 3: the physical CD. For the audio, one user at a time.

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Speaker 3: If they're all checked out, the patron clicks put me

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Speaker 3: on the wait list, Libby will automatically notify them the

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Speaker 3: book is available.

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Speaker 2: Click here to.

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Speaker 3: Start enjoying your read or enjoying your listen. That is

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Speaker 3: the model that built the ebook and audiobook lending in

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Speaker 3: public library. So that is kind of the baseline of

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Speaker 3: the permissions we as publishers. For they set the price.

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Speaker 3: We respect the territorial permission of the author and the publisher,

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Speaker 3: and for every title we seek to get multiple permissions

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Speaker 3: so that our libraries, our schools, our universities, our corporate

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Speaker 3: learning centers can actually acquire the digital book with multiple

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Speaker 3: ways to make it available. I shared with you the

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Speaker 3: most common way, one user at a time. They buy

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Speaker 3: ten copies, ten users can read it, then the rest

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Speaker 3: have to wait till it's the return.

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Speaker 1: Okay. Overdrive only works with institutions, and it only is

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Speaker 1: on the public library side, or is there any conventional

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Speaker 1: retail at all.

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Speaker 3: Overdrive has a thirty year history of being behind the

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Speaker 3: scenes with ebook and audiobook fulfillment for a number of

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Speaker 3: direct to consumer retail experiences. But we have that side

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Speaker 3: of the Overdrive business is much smaller today, and today

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Speaker 3: we are focused and ninety x percent of our revenue

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Speaker 3: that we are the single largest supplier of digital books,

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Speaker 3: books you can read and those are for all ages

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Speaker 3: in all categories. Digital magazines and periodicals, manga, graphic novels

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Speaker 3: and comics, audiobooks and streaming video and we service every

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Speaker 3: type of institution. We're best known for the success Libby

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Speaker 3: and Canopy. Canopy is our streaming It's like Netflix for

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Speaker 3: Library Canopy with the ka NPY similar to you can

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Speaker 3: cut your subscription to Audible or other paid services with

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Speaker 3: Libby for ian audio or audiobooks. Similarly for the streaming

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Speaker 3: video platform. Canopy has the largest collection of feature films,

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Speaker 3: documentary and children and world cinema, more than Netflix. And

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Speaker 3: again with the library card, the app is free and

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Speaker 3: the content is free. We service public libraries and in

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Speaker 3: the US where in every zip code in North America,

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Speaker 3: US and Canada. We serve about sixty percent of the

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Speaker 3: schools in the United States, so that's pre K through

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Speaker 3: high school. Overdrive is globally supplying ebooks, audiobooks, streaming video, magazines,

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Speaker 3: and content to universities, colleges. We are in thousands of

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Speaker 3: corporate knowledge centers. We supply the US military, professional associations

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Speaker 3: and the like. So we supply almost every form of library, public, academic, school,

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Speaker 3: corporate knowledge center, government, military, prison libraries. That is where

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Speaker 3: we are best known worldwide, and today we are available

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Speaker 3: in over ninety thousand institutions. So pretty much anywhere humans exist,

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Speaker 3: they are using our Libby oursa, our Canopy apps or

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Speaker 3: platforms on set tops or browsers to benefit from content

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Speaker 3: lifelong free content courtesy of their local library, university, or school.

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Speaker 1: Okay, just to do some backfill here. Independent retailers are

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Speaker 1: now selling digital books. Who is doing the fulfillment on that?

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Speaker 3: That is today being dramatically supported by bookshop dot org,

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Speaker 3: our good friends out of Brooklyn. In that past, Overdrive

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Speaker 3: had a role in it. And like I said, if

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Speaker 3: this was if we were doing this interview twenty years ago,

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Speaker 3: I would be listing a big litany of publishers that

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Speaker 3: we are powering direct to consumer ebook, audiobook or retail bookstores.

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Speaker 3: When I said, I've been part of more ebook failures.

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Speaker 3: Bob is an entrepreneur born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio.

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Speaker 3: I came home to my family said this is it.

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Speaker 3: We are now going to be the ebook supplier for borders.

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Speaker 3: I just came back from ann Arbor. Well that wasn't it.

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Speaker 3: You know, years before I said this is it, we

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Speaker 3: are going to be the number one e book supplier

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Speaker 3: and one billion cell phones, the biggest mobile cell phone worldwide.

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Speaker 3: We just did no Kia. Well that was a few

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Speaker 3: months before the iPhone was launched, you know, So you

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Speaker 3: know we work today. Retail independent bookstores are very well

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Speaker 3: supported by my buddy Andy Hunter at bookshop dot org.

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Speaker 3: And Andy is doing a great job letting all the

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Speaker 3: independents add a full catalog of Ian audiobooks so they

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Speaker 3: can compete with the Amazons and the and some of

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Speaker 3: the other big boxes.

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Speaker 1: Okay, do you have any competitors in this sphere? Is

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Speaker 1: there somebody else who's licensing written words audio books and

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Speaker 1: providing them to institutions.

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Speaker 3: Yes, we do, and in the in the markets we

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Speaker 3: serve because we are global. Business started here from Cleveland, Ohio.

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Speaker 3: I'm delighted to say that we created the category and

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Speaker 3: we were the ones that pioneered early ebooks. And then

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Speaker 3: about twenty five years ago launched the first public library

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Speaker 3: popular digital book service. And that was years before Kindle

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Speaker 3: or iPads and you know the current ebook environment. And

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Speaker 3: we've over the years, we've had the traditional booksellers, the

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Speaker 3: schools and libraries tried to develop a digital business because

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Speaker 3: they had all of the embedded relationships with the authors

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Speaker 3: in the supply chain. They knew all the publishers, they

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Speaker 3: had the relationships with the rights holders. They service the

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Speaker 3: library and university, and you know the big school district communities,

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Speaker 3: so these would be the Baker and Taylors and the

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Speaker 3: Ingram book groups or in the k twelve defilettes. So

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Speaker 3: all of those traditional booksellers to schools, libraries, institutions, every

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Speaker 3: one of them then developed a digital extension to their

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Speaker 3: physical or their print businesses, and many of those are

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Speaker 3: still in the market today. So we have competitors with

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Speaker 3: Baker and Taylor has a platform called Boundless. There's a

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Speaker 3: legacy CD RAM and DVD distributor to libraries, Midwest Tape

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Speaker 3: out of Holland, Ohio. They created a competitive platform called Hoopla.

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Speaker 3: All of them followed us, but collectively overdrives Libby and Canopy.

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Speaker 3: In the North American public library, we are the dominant

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Speaker 3: leader in many cases, we are the sole supplier to

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Speaker 3: many of these biggest systems in the markets, but we

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Speaker 3: do have competition, and in international markets we have competitors

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Speaker 3: in Germany and here and there, all over the space.

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Speaker 3: And if I look at Universe, it's a different group

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Speaker 3: of competitors. If I look at students in the classroom

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Speaker 3: from kindergarten through high school, we have educational competitors. But

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Speaker 3: for the mainstay of you know, public library, consumer ebook

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Speaker 3: and audiobook, it would be the traditional book suppliers to

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Speaker 3: the market and the few I mentioned.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Let's say I'm a library system you talk about

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Speaker 1: the County of Los Angeles, and I have an arrangement

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Speaker 1: with Overdrive to provide titles. Would they buy titles from

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Speaker 1: anybody else or rent whatever it may be, or is

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Speaker 1: it an exclusive relationship?

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Speaker 3: In most cases with public libraries, there's no contractual exclusivity,

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Speaker 3: but as a de facto business practice, they're only buying

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Speaker 3: from us. And that is the majority of the In

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Speaker 3: the United States, public library data is very available. So

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Speaker 3: we know that out of our nation systems of public

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Speaker 3: libraries roun you know, thirteen fourteen thousand public library systems

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Speaker 3: in the United States. Out of those systems, Overdrive is

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Speaker 3: supplying about eighty five percent of all of the digital

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Speaker 3: book inventories that public libraries used last year. So collectively,

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Speaker 3: all of our competitors might you know, be sharing about

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Speaker 3: fifteen percent of the spend, and we capture the majority

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Speaker 3: of it. And it's not by contract or exclusivity. It's

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Speaker 3: by delivering the best experience for the patron and the listener.

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Speaker 3: It's by having services and features within the experience that

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Speaker 3: want people to use our libby app or canopy. And

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Speaker 3: we're constantly and we do have some competitive advantages that

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Speaker 3: frustrate others. So, for example, in the US, the dominant

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Speaker 3: way many of the adult fiction community enjoy books and

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Speaker 3: reading are on their kindle. Overdrives the only supplier where

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Speaker 3: you can borrow a new bestseller New York Times Bestseller

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Speaker 3: from the Los Angeles Public Library in Libby and through

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Speaker 3: an arrangement an agreement with Amazon, you can borrow it

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Speaker 3: from the library and within a moment open up your

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Speaker 3: kindle paperwhite and start reading the book you borrowed for

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Speaker 3: free in Libby from the library in kindle, and at

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Speaker 3: the end of the fourteen or twenty one days on

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Speaker 3: your kindle, the book expires and gets checked back into

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Speaker 3: the system, all managed by Overdrive. So Overdrive in twenty

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Speaker 3: eleven added a read with Kindle option, and because we're

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Speaker 3: the only ones, Amazon entered into that arrangement with This

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Speaker 3: is another reason why most libraries who are buying popular

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Speaker 3: books will look at Overdrive and Libby as the supplier,

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Speaker 3: because if you bought the book from one of the

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Speaker 3: other suppliers, you would not have the kindle option. So

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Speaker 3: that is just one of many competitive reasons why we've

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Speaker 3: been successful in winning the business. Because we deliver value.

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Speaker 3: We're accountable as well as public libraries and our schools

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Speaker 3: and our universities, and our government agencies, military and prisons

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Speaker 3: are mostly nonprofits, and Overdrive has developed into a mission

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Speaker 3: based company. We know that if we're going to capture federal, state,

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Speaker 3: regional taxpayer money and budgets, we have to earn and

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Speaker 3: be held accountable for how those taxpayer federal funds are

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Speaker 3: being utilized. And we develop, we deliver proven value, and

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Speaker 3: we hold ourselves up to higher standards. And for those reasons,

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Speaker 3: we have continued to grow our footprint in those markets

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Speaker 3: and frustrate our competitors.

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Speaker 1: Okay, very occasionally on the libby app in Los Angeles,

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Speaker 1: I will borrow a book that is not readable on

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Speaker 1: the kindle. Is that because the publisher made a restriction

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Speaker 1: or they got that book from a third party?

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Speaker 3: Well, typically it is when we ingust and our size

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Speaker 3: of our catalog and businesses constantly.

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Speaker 2: Expanding.

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Speaker 3: But in a typical month we will add about one

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Speaker 3: hundred thousand new digital books that are mostly brand new books,

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Speaker 3: and with one hundred thousand books coming in in all

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Speaker 3: languages for all audiences. I'm talking about Japanese manga Arabic

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Speaker 3: audio books read alongs where the children and the babies

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Speaker 3: can see the words and follow the engagement and the

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Speaker 3: hear the words. We add categories of content that are

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Speaker 3: not supported by a Kindle device, So often if you

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Speaker 3: are picking up a select title, if it doesn't have

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Speaker 3: Kindle compatibility, or there is some other inability for the

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Speaker 3: Amazon Catalog to do the enablement. But for most of

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Speaker 3: the English language popular trade books. Trade books are the

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Speaker 3: popular books you see at Amazon, Barts and Noble. We

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Speaker 3: have a very high percent Kindle availability in the US,

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Speaker 3: so yes, you will see some books and sometimes it

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Speaker 3: might only be a gap. We just added it it's

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Speaker 3: a hot new book, and you know we're getting in

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Speaker 3: sync with the Amazon catalog because we're not actually sending

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Speaker 3: the file to the Kindle. We've engineered with Amazon a

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Speaker 3: process that allows Kindle to fulfill the title under the

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Speaker 3: terms and conditions of the library permissions we have. So

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Speaker 3: you will find some occasional books that you can open.

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Speaker 3: And this would be for example, I believe our magazines.

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Speaker 3: Libby does fantastic on magazines, but I don't believe Kindle

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Speaker 3: is supporting our magazines so that you will see pockets

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Speaker 3: of inventory you can borrow in Libby in the US

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Speaker 3: where there's not an immediate Kindle availability.

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Speaker 1: Okay, point blank, let's just use Los Angeles as an example.

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Speaker 1: They have the right to buy from your competitors. Those

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Speaker 1: books would be at a disadvantage, do they or most

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Speaker 1: people that you work with, they're getting all their content

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Speaker 1: from you.

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Speaker 3: The vast majority are buying the vast majority of their

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Speaker 3: digital collection from Overdrive. For the value we deliver, we

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Speaker 3: have to earn the right.

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Speaker 1: Place, Okay, but the lines are exceptions.

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Speaker 3: There's exceptions. So if I don't have a book, you

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Speaker 3: need the book, God bless you. You have to get

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Speaker 3: the book. Because content is king. Content is and will

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Speaker 3: always remain king. And this is why I'll renew a

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Speaker 3: subscription I canceled two years ago because I have a

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Speaker 3: book or a series or streaming and that I'll go

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Speaker 3: through a bad experience or competitors platform. So we do

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Speaker 3: have The reality is in dozens of major metro markets,

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Speaker 3: or Overdrive maybe supplying ninety five percent of all the

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Speaker 3: digital books, they still could have several other competitors. Usually

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Speaker 3: when they have multiple competitors, it's because they're buying it

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Speaker 3: for a selection of either titles that we don't offer

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Speaker 3: for one or various reasons, or some other legacy reasons.

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Speaker 3: So yes, but it's very rare that they're going to

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Speaker 3: buy the same title, the new Sarah Jay Moss or

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Speaker 3: you know Dan Brown, or you know John Grisham. They

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Speaker 3: will occasionally buy the John Grisham in my platform and

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Speaker 3: one of my competitors, because they do have an audience

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Speaker 3: of users and it could be seniors that learn this system,

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Speaker 3: and they don't want to learn a new system. You know,

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Speaker 3: it's America, and we do not have we do not

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Speaker 3: you know, handcuff our buyers with you know, restrictions, and

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Speaker 3: you can't buy for my competitor. I want to win

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Speaker 3: the business because I offer the best value, the best service,

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Speaker 3: and the best selection.

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Speaker 2: But in reality that does exist.

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Speaker 3: I could show you the homepage of many California libraries.

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Speaker 3: You'll see what's the most prominent app and the experience

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Speaker 3: they promote in library online. It would be Libby for books,

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Speaker 3: Canopy for video. But in many cases I'll go in

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Speaker 3: the library and I'll see our competitors banner stands and

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Speaker 3: you know, bookmarks and you know merchandising. We're not exclusive

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Speaker 3: and many of our customers have multiple suppliers, but they're

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Speaker 3: buying usually smaller select and they may have a variety

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Speaker 3: of reasons why they did that.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about overdrives. Relationship with publishers. As you stated,

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Speaker 1: you've been in this business along time. It has been a

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Speaker 1: long evolution. Yes, let's just say, with the major publishers today,

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Speaker 1: do you have an annual or multi year deal that

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Speaker 1: covers all their books or are they charging different prices

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Speaker 1: for different titles? How does it work?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, our business is not too different from what you

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Speaker 3: would think of a traditional distributor. Let's take Ingram Content Group,

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Speaker 3: and Ingram would be known across many industries. Micro Ingram

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Speaker 3: and Ingram Books or Baker and Taylor is very specific

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Speaker 3: to public library. So we have relations direct distribution, terms

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Speaker 3: of sale with When we talk about the Big five

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Speaker 3: right now, in most countries, the best sellers are dominated

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Speaker 3: by anywhere from two to three. In the US is

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Speaker 3: now we call the Big five. It used to be

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Speaker 3: the Big six, but then Penguin and Random House merge,

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Speaker 3: so we have the Big five. So in the US,

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Speaker 3: the Big five dominate maybe sixty of all of the

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Speaker 3: popular trade book sales. And that's you know most of

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Speaker 3: the New York Times bestseller list and the marquee authors

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Speaker 3: you're familiar with. Our relationship with each of them is

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Speaker 3: a direct distribution agreement. In most cases we provide them

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Speaker 3: access to our marketplace. Overdrive has developed and has been

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Speaker 3: operating for twenty five years, the single largest B to

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Speaker 3: B digital book supply chain for retail and institutional buyers.

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Speaker 3: So with a Penguin Random House, a Simon and Schuster,

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Speaker 3: a McMillan, a hartper Collins, for example, we have negotiated

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Speaker 3: or operating under published terms of sale. Most cases it's

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Speaker 3: a distributor discount off of a digitalist price. So we

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Speaker 3: have the ability to sell a unit of a Penguin

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Speaker 3: Random House bestseller, this new John Grisham.

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Speaker 2: We know what.

436
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 3: Their digital list prices is like recommended price to the market.

437
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 3: We pay for every unit that is acquired by a

438
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 3: buyer based on the gross margin or the distributor discount.

439
00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 3: So just to make life easy and our and our

440
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 3: distributor discounts vary and there's a healthy negotiation going on.

441
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:40,479
Speaker 3: Frequently they're trying to claw back a few points gross margin.

442
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 3: We're trying to get them back, so we take a

443
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 3: percentage of the sale of the goods and pay back

444
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 3: the publisher. I will say this, Overdrive has a very

445
00:32:55,240 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 3: large digital book institutional business to library schools and universities.

446
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:05,959
Speaker 3: We send to the big five publishers hundreds of millions

447
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 3: of dollars annually, and the majority of the money that

448
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 3: library schools and government agencies pay for the rights for

449
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 3: you to borrow as a student, as a taxpayer, as

450
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:25,200
Speaker 3: a library patron, the majority goes to the publisher, and

451
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 3: then the publisher has their deals with the agents and authors,

452
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:34,960
Speaker 3: so every time someone buys a book and is being

453
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 3: used at a public library, the majority of the revenue

454
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 3: paid by the library goes to the publisher.

455
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 2: And authors earn on every.

456
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 3: Book we sell, and sometimes authors aren't familiar. All they

457
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 3: see is oh, I can get a book for free

458
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 3: from the library, and the authors sometimes is not informed,

459
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 3: and this is because publisher on their royalty reports to

460
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 3: their authors are not delineating occasionally how many units and

461
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 3: how much revenue that author earned from the public library channel,

462
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:16,399
Speaker 3: from the schools or from the university markets that.

463
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 2: We sell to.

464
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of misinformation on the creator community.

465
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 3: When they just see, Oh you mean someone's getting my

466
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:27,880
Speaker 3: book for free? Well, how do I get paid? I

467
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 3: can tell you every author earns significant share of the revenue.

468
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:36,839
Speaker 3: Librari's pay and the majority of the revenue goes to

469
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:42,320
Speaker 3: the supplier, my aggregator, my publisher, or my audio partner.

470
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have a deal. Let's say with Penguin

471
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: Random House on their books to traditional retail and physical

472
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 1: every book might have a different retail price and wholesale price.

473
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: A is it the same with you b as a

474
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 1: result of an anti trust lawsuit? When Apple and Amazon

475
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: sell their books, it's an agency thing such a it's

476
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 1: a percentage in your particular case, is you're buying the

477
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 1: book akin to that or is it a kin to

478
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:35,759
Speaker 1: a retailer? This is the price minus whatever discounts you

479
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:37,759
Speaker 1: might have. That as a price you're paid.

480
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 3: As you're familiar with as a result of the antitrust

481
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:49,400
Speaker 3: action the Big five or six at the time, it

482
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 3: was found that they created this agency model to facilitate

483
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 3: go you know, I want to discuss legal justification for that.

484
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 3: But to answer your question, it's more like a straight

485
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 3: distribution business and we actually have the ability to set

486
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:18,799
Speaker 3: the price we charge the market for the vast majority

487
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 3: of the inventory coming into the Overdrive marketplace. We operate marketplace.

488
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 3: It's only a B to B shopping. So your listeners,

489
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 3: unless say are a buyer at a nonprofit institution, library, university,

490
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:37,440
Speaker 3: government agency, they can't go in and look at my catalog.

491
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 3: But for the ninety thousand institutional buyers that have access

492
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 3: to go into my warehouse to see what books are available,

493
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 3: they see majority of it are the digitalist price that

494
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:55,919
Speaker 3: was established by our supplier. We just benefit from them

495
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:59,799
Speaker 3: setting the price putting it in, and we operate off

496
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 3: of our gross margin discount from what you know, the

497
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 3: difference from what I sell the book to what I

498
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 3: have to pay the publisher for the unit. So for

499
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:14,799
Speaker 3: if I have to pay the publisher fifteen dollars and

500
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 3: I sell the book for twenty five, you know, then

501
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 3: I'm earning the ten dollars gross margin. So I earn

502
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 3: forty points and the publisher got sixty. I mean, if

503
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:28,920
Speaker 3: my math is right, So that's that is the model.

504
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 3: We get a digital list price, we sell it at

505
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 3: the digital list price. We pay the supplier minus our

506
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:41,239
Speaker 3: distributor discount. Now, in some cases Overdrive might discount the

507
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 3: price and I might get, you know, eat into my

508
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 3: gross margin. In some cases, we might have the publisher say,

509
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:51,359
Speaker 3: we want to up unit sales, we want to sell

510
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:55,840
Speaker 3: it to more doors. Let's let's create a sale like

511
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 3: back to school. Like back to school is a very

512
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 3: big campaign we're in the middle of now, Bob. And

513
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:05,879
Speaker 3: it's not just for schools. It's for public libraries, for universities.

514
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:11,160
Speaker 3: It's even for corporations that are helping professional development or

515
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:15,960
Speaker 3: remote or continuing education or professional development. So we may

516
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:18,840
Speaker 3: have publishers say, hey, for the month of August September,

517
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 3: we're going to reduce the price of all of our books.

518
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 2: Our gross margin stays the.

519
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 3: Same, but then we increase unit sales, maybe capture a

520
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:31,280
Speaker 3: little higher bump year over year for back to school period,

521
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:36,279
Speaker 3: but we're still operating off the same gross margin. So

522
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,440
Speaker 3: the gross margin that we negotiate with our suppliers is

523
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 3: basically how Overdrive earns its.

524
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 2: You know.

525
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 1: Okay, as a practical matter, I realize nothing is identical,

526
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,759
Speaker 1: But if a library is buying a book, or when

527
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: you're buying the book, is it essentially the same price

528
00:38:57,040 --> 00:38:59,880
Speaker 1: as an end user might see on Apple or Amazon.

529
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 2: It may be.

530
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 3: Unfortunately for the most popular in demand bestsellers, the supply

531
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 3: chain and the publishers and the authors and the agents

532
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 3: have increased the price to library lending to often make

533
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:23,760
Speaker 3: it a multiple of the price sets the prevailing retail

534
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 3: price at Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Apple or Audible.

535
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 3: And they've justified that because they are correct in saying

536
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 3: that when we sell a license for a library to

537
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 3: lend this book out, we know that it will be

538
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 3: used by multiple users over the course of a calendar year.

539
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:56,920
Speaker 3: And they also know that during the period of the

540
00:39:57,080 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 3: digital access for that book, they're unlikely going to be

541
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:06,359
Speaker 3: buying a replacement copy. So when a library bought a

542
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 3: physical book or a stack of audiobooks, and audiobooks really

543
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,839
Speaker 3: is the reason why overdrive success in the early two

544
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:19,880
Speaker 3: thousands rolled across the country. We were solving a big

545
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:24,919
Speaker 3: paint point for libraries. If your listeners are still going

546
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 3: into public libraries, maybe for themselves or parents or grandparents

547
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:32,799
Speaker 3: and getting mom or dad an audiobook and they get

548
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 3: a hearts clamshell plastic case like you used to get

549
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 3: a Blockbusters and it's filled with a sleeve of twelve CDs.

550
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:46,360
Speaker 3: That's how people were using audiobooks before we invented download

551
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:50,920
Speaker 3: audiobook at the library. But guess what, after about three

552
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 3: or six months, the library had to buy replacement units.

553
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 3: When we were first selling our digital book value proposition

554
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:01,239
Speaker 3: to libraries, and you bought an ebook or an audiobook,

555
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 3: I said, you know what, you buy this unit never lost,

556
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 3: never late, never damaged, lever scratched. So publishers said, an

557
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 3: author said, at least when the library or the school

558
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:19,359
Speaker 3: bought my book every year or every few months, I

559
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 3: might be selling additional replacement units. At least when they

560
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 3: were buying my digital books. The book couldn't be anywhere

561
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 3: in an instant so there were limitations on the number

562
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 3: of actual readers that could benefit from that print copy

563
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 3: or that box of CDs. So the publishers of the

564
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 3: big best sellers and their agents and authors started to

565
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 3: demand that they would only sell into schools and institutions

566
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 3: that had permissions to possibly let fifty people use it

567
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 3: in a year or more. They wanted a higher price

568
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:03,439
Speaker 3: per unit. So today the reality is that for many

569
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 3: of the best sellers that when the first book comes out,

570
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:13,400
Speaker 3: and the book industry also kind of like the video industry.

571
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 3: You know, it first used to be theatrical first, and

572
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:17,880
Speaker 3: then it went into pay per view, and then it

573
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 3: got into you know, the streaming, and then eventually it

574
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 3: went into the home channels and CD and DVD markets.

575
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 3: So the publishing industry still still has a premium on

576
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:31,319
Speaker 3: when the new book comes out and it's called a

577
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 3: frontless title. When the frontless New York Times bestseller drops,

578
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:42,280
Speaker 3: they really want to maximize the impact at retail first

579
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:46,400
Speaker 3: format hardcover sales. They're trying to keep the velocity and

580
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 3: the buzz up. And then as a book after twelve

581
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:52,919
Speaker 3: months or twenty four months, starts to become a book

582
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:55,759
Speaker 3: that they would call it's now moving into the publisher's

583
00:42:55,880 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 3: mid list and eventually backlist for the author and publisher,

584
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:04,319
Speaker 3: we'll often see the prices to the library decline. So

585
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 3: we have a complex because we've been doing digital library

586
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 3: and we've created the dynamics of now I think we

587
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 3: have over thirty thousand individual suppliers to our digital distribution

588
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 3: platform globally. We've allowed the suppliers, the aggregators, the JK.

589
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:28,600
Speaker 3: Rowlings and Potter Mores when they say here's how we're

590
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:33,919
Speaker 3: willing to make Harry Potter available in forty languages worldwide.

591
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 3: We want this price, we want this model. We have

592
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:41,280
Speaker 3: to listen to them and see how we can accommodate.

593
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:45,800
Speaker 3: So Overdrive another reason why we are the dominant supplier

594
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 3: because we've invented and developed most of the platforms that

595
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 3: all our competitors have emulated or copied over the years worldwide.

596
00:43:55,080 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 3: Our capability of meeting the rights holders requirements is unparalleled.

597
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:05,359
Speaker 2: We support more one off.

598
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:09,960
Speaker 3: Unfortunate because content is king, and for the first five

599
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:14,839
Speaker 3: years when I launched popular ebook lending, all I heard

600
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:17,760
Speaker 3: was Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, and still today

601
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 3: Harry Potter went through seven as we call it, starting

602
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 3: with Sorcerer's Stone, is still today one of the most

603
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:29,240
Speaker 3: used digital books worldwide in all languages and all channels.

604
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 2: So, being content as king, we.

605
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 3: Have developed and we support to the suppliers, and we

606
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 3: are evangelizing for authors and publishers. If you follow Overdrives guidance,

607
00:44:43,719 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 3: we can tell you how you can grow market share,

608
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:54,319
Speaker 3: increase brand awareness, and when libraries are interested in then

609
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 3: ian audiobook and put it in their catalog for discovery.

610
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:02,400
Speaker 3: Overdrive will help you, your author and your publisher. We

611
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:06,439
Speaker 3: will discover your book and sell more print. We'll sell

612
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:09,759
Speaker 3: more print to the library, will create more demand for

613
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 3: your book at Apple and Kindall and Barnes and Noble

614
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:17,360
Speaker 3: and elsewhere. We have been proven to be such a

615
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 3: valuable discovery and sales partner to the author in the

616
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 3: publisher community that I'm proud to say almost all of

617
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 3: the Big five now have also given overdrive permissions for

618
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 3: other models besides the one user at a time.

619
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:34,560
Speaker 2: And that's something I want to share with you and

620
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:35,840
Speaker 2: your listeners.

621
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:39,320
Speaker 1: OK, a couple of things. Just do some cleanup work.

622
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:44,280
Speaker 1: What about the concept of expiration you have. I'm buying

623
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 1: the book, but after it's read two hundred times or

624
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 1: it's read for twelve months, it expires. What's going on there?

625
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 2: In a good swath of our catalog.

626
00:45:56,360 --> 00:46:03,240
Speaker 3: We have enabled the publishers that require a overdrive, invented

627
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 3: this term metered access. What happened was when we were

628
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 3: negotiating twenty five years ago and ongoing even today overseas

629
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 3: and globally, when I get a reluctant author or publisher says, well,

630
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 3: I'll only go in the library, but I don't want

631
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:23,320
Speaker 3: them to buy the book and have one a digital

632
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 3: file and then that's it forever. So they invented the

633
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 3: way that they said, I'm willing to sell to the institution,

634
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 3: but I want them to every two years have to

635
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 3: renew their license. So we created a system of metered

636
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 3: access levers. The first metered access level was introduced about

637
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 3: fifteen years ago by HarperCollins. They said, especially think about nonfiction.

638
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 3: Think about reference. If you are a library and you're

639
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 3: buying a reference book, an evergreen title, a dictionary, a

640
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 3: reference book that people use to look up. It's not

641
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:14,919
Speaker 3: for pleasure reading, it's not a beach read, it's for

642
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:19,400
Speaker 3: looking up in research. Do they want to sell that

643
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 3: book and maybe it doesn't get updated but once every

644
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 3: ten years? Do they want to sell that book once

645
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:28,799
Speaker 3: and then that's it. The library buy five copies, will

646
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:32,600
Speaker 3: never sell another copy of that dictionary until there's a

647
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:38,080
Speaker 3: massive update. So publishers fifteen years ago said, we want

648
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:40,279
Speaker 3: to find a way that if we do sell it,

649
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:44,840
Speaker 3: it's not perpetual. So HarperCollins fifteen years ago introduced the

650
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:48,960
Speaker 3: first of these levers. They introduce, when the library buys

651
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:54,400
Speaker 3: my new popular HarperCollins ebook. We want the library to

652
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:58,720
Speaker 3: lend it out twenty six times. After twenty six times,

653
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:02,799
Speaker 3: they want them to buy a replenish unit. So that

654
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:07,120
Speaker 3: was introduced. Within a year or two, we had one

655
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:10,280
Speaker 3: of the other Big five who said, we are willing

656
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 3: to give you books popular bestsellers, and they introduce a

657
00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:18,360
Speaker 3: meter of We're willing to sell you the ebook for

658
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 3: library lending. One user at a time. They buy five copies,

659
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:24,799
Speaker 3: five people in the wait list. You wait your turn.

660
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:29,960
Speaker 3: But for each unit, we want each unit from the

661
00:48:30,080 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 3: data goes live, we want the library title of that

662
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:38,440
Speaker 3: unit to expire in two years. So that's meter to

663
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 3: Access twenty four months. During COVID, we then had libraries

664
00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:49,400
Speaker 3: at urgencies and wanted to fill holds. Penguin Random House said,

665
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 3: to be even more flexible. How about we now let

666
00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 3: libraries buy the same unit that PRH made Meter to

667
00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 3: Access twenty four months. Now you can buy the same

668
00:48:59,719 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 3: best seller metered access twelve months at fifty percent the price.

669
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:08,960
Speaker 3: So overdrive has supported and today in our catalog, unfortunately,

670
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:14,359
Speaker 3: we support and when we go internationally, we saw that

671
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:20,439
Speaker 3: in Germany the publishers were licensing books to libraries for

672
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 3: forty eight months or fifty serfs, whichever came first. So

673
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:29,720
Speaker 3: Overdrive had to develop the capability so we could support

674
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:35,760
Speaker 3: the Berlin Public Library, Hamburg or you know, Munich. So unfortunately,

675
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 3: when I said, the business has got it complex based

676
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 3: on the marketplace and they restrictions or the permissions that

677
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:47,800
Speaker 3: were set by the rights holders. This is why it's

678
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:52,800
Speaker 3: becoming more complicated and challenging in the for the buyer,

679
00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:59,120
Speaker 3: and Overdrive has been evangelizing, simplifying and providing the tools.

680
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: Okay says there's a tension always in commerce between the

681
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 1: seller and the buyer. So you're talking about the seller

682
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 1: having multiples of traditional list price, you're talking about controls.

683
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: Now when you deal with an Amazon, which of course

684
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 1: is extremely powerful, they will push back into that. They'll say, well,

685
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 1: you know, our business model doesn't work, our customers don't

686
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 1: want it, our libraries pushing You read in the Wall

687
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:41,840
Speaker 1: Street Journal about this all the time, Okay, especially expiration whatever.

688
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: Is this just something that people have to accept or

689
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:49,600
Speaker 1: is there a pushback? And to what degree is Overdrive

690
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:53,520
Speaker 1: itself saying hey, you know you're killing the business by

691
00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:54,080
Speaker 1: doing this.

692
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 2: You know, Bob, thank you.

693
00:50:56,640 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 3: I've been an evangelist for enlightening the rights, whul on

694
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 3: the un realized, the underrealized value and appreciation for what

695
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:11,840
Speaker 3: our nation's librarians do. And I'll just talk about the US.

696
00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 3: It's it's kind of a global phenomenon in many markets.

697
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 3: And when we introduce this, and I've had to give

698
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 3: testimony in Parliament, I've given testimony and many I've been

699
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:26,520
Speaker 3: in Congress. I've been in the US and globally. There

700
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:32,120
Speaker 3: is an anti library e lending bias that has permeated

701
00:51:32,560 --> 00:51:38,320
Speaker 3: this market, and there are bias and stereotypes against e lending,

702
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:46,560
Speaker 3: and as a result, the libraries have been forced to

703
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 3: evaluate if they want to be relevant with the migration

704
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:54,080
Speaker 3: to an online, mobile, digital world with a mobile and

705
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:57,799
Speaker 3: everyone's smartphone and listening in your car and you know,

706
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 3: Bluetooth and every device in your house. The libraries have

707
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:07,160
Speaker 3: had to swallow hard. The prices in many cases are onerous,

708
00:52:07,600 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 3: the restrictions are challenging. It puts tremendous stress on the institutions.

709
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:22,319
Speaker 3: And the real trauma now is not even what this environment. Yeah,

710
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:25,080
Speaker 3: this is the overhead for a market that's been going

711
00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:29,520
Speaker 3: through the pains of transitioning from analog to digital as

712
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:34,919
Speaker 3: many industries have growing pains and accommodations and so many

713
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:37,799
Speaker 3: of the things that are being done now, and there's

714
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:43,319
Speaker 3: all you know. So the pressures that the libraries are

715
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:46,759
Speaker 3: put under has been daunting. But I could say this

716
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:53,560
Speaker 3: overdrive has been consistently delivering over twenty five years incremental

717
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:57,200
Speaker 3: progress because we have a north start. We are a

718
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 3: mission based company. In twenty seventeen we became a certified

719
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:06,280
Speaker 3: B corporation. If we are going to capture significant tens

720
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:10,120
Speaker 3: of millions of dollars in every state from their public

721
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:16,239
Speaker 3: funds to educate, entertain, comfort and support the communities from

722
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:21,040
Speaker 3: cradle to grave, we have to be advocates for those

723
00:53:21,160 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 3: institutional buyers. And I can tell you we have pushed

724
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:30,360
Speaker 3: and we have been successful in getting fair, flexible and

725
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:34,359
Speaker 3: more reasonable accommodation and movement from the Big five than

726
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:37,799
Speaker 3: any other force in the market. And we are constantly

727
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:41,480
Speaker 3: getting wins for the buyers. But there's still a lot

728
00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 3: more work to do. I don't want to name names,

729
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:48,279
Speaker 3: but we have some very big, prominent publishers that if

730
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 3: you just looked at their terms, you would think that

731
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:55,399
Speaker 3: they really do not want any libraries to buy their

732
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:58,480
Speaker 3: books because they've made it so onerous and so difficult,

733
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:02,040
Speaker 3: and as a result, librarians have say I'll only buy

734
00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:05,600
Speaker 3: the book if I have to so that author and

735
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:09,000
Speaker 3: that publisher unless they have a must have book it's

736
00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:11,640
Speaker 3: now you know, made it to a motion picture, the

737
00:54:11,640 --> 00:54:16,320
Speaker 3: author's coming to town. They will buy that author's book

738
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 3: as few as they have to, only because they want

739
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:22,319
Speaker 3: to be relevant and they don't want patrons saying, what's

740
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:23,080
Speaker 3: the matter with you?

741
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 2: This is the biggest book. How come you don't have

742
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:25,680
Speaker 2: it in libby?

743
00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:29,560
Speaker 3: Because everybody expects the public library to have every book

744
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:32,760
Speaker 3: available for them, all books at all time, because it's digital,

745
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 3: and unfortunately the libraries are dealt this dynamic situation. But

746
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:42,600
Speaker 3: I can tell you Overdrive has stood on the side

747
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 3: of librarians and we are delivering every month wins. For example,

748
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:55,000
Speaker 3: the last two years we have evangelized big collections value

749
00:54:55,040 --> 00:55:00,600
Speaker 3: propositions to libraries. One is called all access. When we

750
00:55:00,719 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 3: saw during COVID the dynamic spike in demand when all

751
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:09,360
Speaker 3: the physical libraries close and every student in America became

752
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:13,000
Speaker 3: a remote and distant learner, and the cries came out

753
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:16,440
Speaker 3: from the librarians and the cities and the superintendents of

754
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:20,480
Speaker 3: the big school districts, including LAUSD and New York Public schools.

755
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:23,879
Speaker 3: They said, we're not going to be here for two

756
00:55:23,920 --> 00:55:26,640
Speaker 3: years and our kids don't have a book. So we

757
00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:29,400
Speaker 3: had to go to the publishers and say we need

758
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:32,200
Speaker 3: to create instant availability.

759
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:33,160
Speaker 2: Now.

760
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:39,040
Speaker 3: We started to negotiate and got permissions for what we

761
00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:44,400
Speaker 3: call all access collections. Libraries now through Overdrive can select

762
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:49,360
Speaker 3: from dozens of bundles where they buy an annual plan

763
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:55,839
Speaker 3: and in some cases two thousand books always available, no weightless,

764
00:55:55,880 --> 00:55:59,799
Speaker 3: simultaneous access. If you need to make a reading list

765
00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:03,640
Speaker 3: for your kids for summer reading, use these books. They

766
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:05,960
Speaker 3: will never be a wait list. You promote them on

767
00:56:06,040 --> 00:56:10,080
Speaker 3: your homepage, you make reading challenges and bringing the authors.

768
00:56:10,719 --> 00:56:13,239
Speaker 3: You want to have fifty thousand people read the same

769
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:14,400
Speaker 3: book at the same time.

770
00:56:14,560 --> 00:56:15,040
Speaker 2: Done.

771
00:56:15,719 --> 00:56:19,279
Speaker 3: So, we have evangelized that we have launched all access collections.

772
00:56:19,440 --> 00:56:23,959
Speaker 3: We launch a very popular all access romance and let's

773
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:28,880
Speaker 3: face it, romance, adult picture, erotic, romanticy, pretty hot, and

774
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:30,320
Speaker 3: I'm talking about great books.

775
00:56:30,600 --> 00:56:30,719
Speaker 2: Now.

776
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:33,040
Speaker 3: It may not be the current New York bestseller, that

777
00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:36,400
Speaker 3: this publisher is giving me unlimited access for the entire

778
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:39,640
Speaker 3: state of California for one flat fee. But that is

779
00:56:39,719 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 3: live today all across the country. We have evangelized. I'm

780
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:49,000
Speaker 3: a costco shopper. My wife loves BJ wholesale Club. What

781
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:51,640
Speaker 3: do we do when you know that as a library

782
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:55,440
Speaker 3: you need inventory. You know this is a quality book,

783
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 3: it's never going to go out of style. We negotiated

784
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 3: with the publishers for a model we call Overdrive Max.

785
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:03,760
Speaker 2: And it's like costco.

786
00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:07,480
Speaker 3: If you are going to buy something that has long

787
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:11,919
Speaker 3: shelf life, you're buying paper, toal and bottled water. Why

788
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:15,920
Speaker 3: do you buy in bulk because it never expires and

789
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:18,960
Speaker 3: you want to get the lowest cost per unit. Overdrive

790
00:57:19,040 --> 00:57:23,640
Speaker 3: has rolled out globally a growing catalog of Overdrive Max

791
00:57:23,720 --> 00:57:27,720
Speaker 3: availability and you can buy this book in bundles of

792
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:31,440
Speaker 3: one hundred cirques and it never expires. So I have

793
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 3: Monday morning in Long Island, New York and Queens. The

794
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:38,000
Speaker 3: buyers for New York Public and Brooklyn Public, they come

795
00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:41,320
Speaker 3: in at morning. It's called book ops or operation buying

796
00:57:41,400 --> 00:57:44,720
Speaker 3: for the NYPL and Brooklyn Library. They come in, they

797
00:57:44,720 --> 00:57:47,880
Speaker 3: say what was added over the weekend in that model.

798
00:57:48,920 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 3: I buy that model first because I can use that

799
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:57,240
Speaker 3: available inventory anytime anywhere. If all of a sudden there's

800
00:57:57,360 --> 00:58:00,800
Speaker 3: a big demand on the best seller, I could buy

801
00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:03,320
Speaker 3: one hundred units and knock out one hundred holds at

802
00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:05,000
Speaker 3: once because I got a low.

803
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:05,680
Speaker 2: Cost of unit.

804
00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:08,760
Speaker 3: I went to Costco, I loaded up, I reduced the

805
00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:12,480
Speaker 3: waytime and the Holts list. I know that we have

806
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:15,080
Speaker 3: this author coming in for an author event. The author's

807
00:58:15,120 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 3: coming for an author event, three hundred people are coming in.

808
00:58:18,400 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 3: Everybody's going to want the book in advance of the

809
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:23,720
Speaker 3: author event. So they might say, let's buy five hundred

810
00:58:23,800 --> 00:58:27,400
Speaker 3: units in Overdrive Max and I have the lowest cost

811
00:58:27,520 --> 00:58:33,440
Speaker 3: per lend. So Overdrive has provided tools to the library

812
00:58:33,560 --> 00:58:38,720
Speaker 3: so they could go into our massive catalog of millions

813
00:58:38,720 --> 00:58:43,440
Speaker 3: of in copyright digital books and in many cases of

814
00:58:43,600 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 3: valuate because schools, libraries, institutions use books for different purposes.

815
00:58:50,640 --> 00:58:53,960
Speaker 3: So I argue to the author and the publisher, if

816
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:58,240
Speaker 3: you give the market multiple ways to buy your product,

817
00:58:58,600 --> 00:58:59,400
Speaker 3: you'll sell more.

818
00:59:00,440 --> 00:59:01,080
Speaker 2: I have some.

819
00:59:01,120 --> 00:59:05,360
Speaker 3: Buyers in some communities who will only buy by one model,

820
00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:09,680
Speaker 3: and that's it. If you don't offer your books in

821
00:59:09,720 --> 00:59:12,920
Speaker 3: that model, you don't exist. They come in, they search

822
00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 3: what's available. If you're not in that model. You don't

823
00:59:16,040 --> 00:59:17,120
Speaker 3: get that top of the wall.

824
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 2: It's spent.

825
00:59:18,600 --> 00:59:21,920
Speaker 3: So I am evangelizing that if you give the market

826
00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:27,000
Speaker 3: multiple ways, because you buy books for reference, you buy

827
00:59:27,040 --> 00:59:32,439
Speaker 3: books for a beach read. You buy books when you're

828
00:59:32,720 --> 00:59:35,760
Speaker 3: going off the grid. Then you want that five hundred

829
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:38,680
Speaker 3: page novel. But you're going to the beach for the weekend,

830
00:59:38,760 --> 00:59:46,440
Speaker 3: you want that weekend read. We want books in because libraries, schools, universities, corporations,

831
00:59:46,600 --> 00:59:50,240
Speaker 3: knowledge centers. Books are used in so many different ways,

832
00:59:50,640 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 3: and we have engineered multiple solutions and it's evolved over

833
00:59:56,080 --> 00:59:58,120
Speaker 3: the last you know, three decades.

834
00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:02,760
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk the history of ebooks from a consumer standpoint.

835
01:00:02,800 --> 01:00:04,640
Speaker 1: You've been in the business for forty years, but the

836
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:10,040
Speaker 1: average person is not. Kindall launches from Amazon. Their business

837
01:00:10,200 --> 01:00:14,560
Speaker 1: model is we will pay you traditional wholesale on the book,

838
01:00:15,000 --> 01:00:18,520
Speaker 1: just like a physical book. We will set the price,

839
01:00:19,280 --> 01:00:21,640
Speaker 1: we will make up the loss. So let's say wholesale

840
01:00:21,720 --> 01:00:24,240
Speaker 1: was seventeen dollars at the time, everything was nine to

841
01:00:24,320 --> 01:00:24,919
Speaker 1: ninety nine.

842
01:00:25,840 --> 01:00:26,080
Speaker 2: Right.

843
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:31,720
Speaker 1: Of course, as we say, it was the antitrust element.

844
01:00:31,840 --> 01:00:36,280
Speaker 1: But what I'm focusing on here is publishers and what

845
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:39,520
Speaker 1: degree are they hip to what is going on in

846
01:00:39,560 --> 01:00:44,920
Speaker 1: the online digital world. When they did that, ebook sales

847
01:00:45,000 --> 01:00:50,680
Speaker 1: went down. They saw that as a triumph. Okay, Jeff

848
01:00:50,680 --> 01:00:53,400
Speaker 1: Bezos was still at the Amazon at the time, said

849
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:57,680
Speaker 1: my goal with the low prices is to grow a business.

850
01:00:58,640 --> 01:01:00,760
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs at Apple didn't give a shit, he said,

851
01:01:00,960 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 1: you know, books weren't that important to him. But subsequent

852
01:01:05,720 --> 01:01:12,080
Speaker 1: to that antitrust, you know, all you saw were articles about, well,

853
01:01:12,200 --> 01:01:15,960
Speaker 1: the independent bookstores coming back. Look how well physical is

854
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:20,320
Speaker 1: doing now. Libby is an unbelievable success. But I want

855
01:01:20,320 --> 01:01:22,320
Speaker 1: to carve out something and I want to leave that

856
01:01:22,360 --> 01:01:28,680
Speaker 1: aside for a second. Do the publishers still understand that

857
01:01:28,720 --> 01:01:32,920
Speaker 1: the future is digital or are they still hanging on

858
01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 1: to the physical model and using digital reluctantly? And to

859
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:40,320
Speaker 1: what degree are they sophisticated on this subject.

860
01:01:41,400 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 3: Well, it's a great question, Bob, and unfortunately it varies

861
01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:49,240
Speaker 3: from house to house. And as I think you know,

862
01:01:50,000 --> 01:01:55,760
Speaker 3: many of the larger trade houses are actually a federation

863
01:01:56,200 --> 01:02:01,560
Speaker 3: of individual imprints that they've acquired through acquis positions. So

864
01:02:02,480 --> 01:02:05,560
Speaker 3: the largest is Penguin Random House in the trade book space.

865
01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:10,400
Speaker 3: I was just over with our publishing partners in Munich

866
01:02:10,520 --> 01:02:16,280
Speaker 3: at PRH Germany even trying to evangelize the German fifty

867
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:20,560
Speaker 3: Penguin Random House German imprints that you've never heard of.

868
01:02:20,680 --> 01:02:21,919
Speaker 2: Maybe you've heard of one or two.

869
01:02:23,280 --> 01:02:26,680
Speaker 3: Every single one of them is run by an individual publisher,

870
01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:32,360
Speaker 3: and PRH runs a more decentralized.

871
01:02:32,600 --> 01:02:33,320
Speaker 2: Business.

872
01:02:33,840 --> 01:02:37,160
Speaker 3: So you may have parts of the catalog that are

873
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:42,520
Speaker 3: progressive and they want to get discovered everywhere worldwide, and

874
01:02:42,520 --> 01:02:45,560
Speaker 3: they're a little bit more flexible on models and pricing,

875
01:02:46,320 --> 01:02:51,200
Speaker 3: And then you may have a more traditional, legacy conservative

876
01:02:51,240 --> 01:02:56,960
Speaker 3: mindset who you know, just has it is holding on

877
01:02:57,040 --> 01:03:01,440
Speaker 3: to the past. In the international markets, it's dramatically a

878
01:03:01,560 --> 01:03:04,960
Speaker 3: challenge when I go, let's say, into Japan or into

879
01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:09,560
Speaker 3: some of the Asian markets, they have such a reluctance

880
01:03:10,160 --> 01:03:15,480
Speaker 3: to change their business process. And quite frankly, it's happening

881
01:03:15,600 --> 01:03:18,560
Speaker 3: in the last year or two. There's been a real

882
01:03:18,920 --> 01:03:26,720
Speaker 3: awakening that the traditional print model is not only declining

883
01:03:26,800 --> 01:03:29,840
Speaker 3: and at risk, but there was like a major shock

884
01:03:29,880 --> 01:03:34,560
Speaker 3: wave just recently when the industry decided that they're going

885
01:03:34,640 --> 01:03:39,560
Speaker 3: to just quit mass paperback publishing. I mean, the biggest

886
01:03:39,560 --> 01:03:45,720
Speaker 3: impact would be for the thousands of drug stores and

887
01:03:45,960 --> 01:03:50,600
Speaker 3: small independent retail that when the magazine jobber came in

888
01:03:50,640 --> 01:03:53,520
Speaker 3: to freshen up the newsstand and the magazines next to

889
01:03:53,520 --> 01:03:56,000
Speaker 3: the American greeting guy who was freshing up because it's

890
01:03:56,000 --> 01:03:59,200
Speaker 3: a real estate business. At least they also dropped in

891
01:03:59,280 --> 01:04:01,880
Speaker 3: the top twenty best selling paperbacks and maybe was an

892
01:04:01,920 --> 01:04:04,400
Speaker 3: impulse item at the bookstand or at the train station.

893
01:04:05,080 --> 01:04:10,320
Speaker 3: Mass paperback going away as a format. That's huge, I

894
01:04:10,400 --> 01:04:14,080
Speaker 3: mean everything they've been trying to protect. They also have

895
01:04:14,160 --> 01:04:18,640
Speaker 3: had this legacy value proposition that the most important thing

896
01:04:18,720 --> 01:04:21,760
Speaker 3: that the Big Five now have been, you know, obsessed

897
01:04:21,760 --> 01:04:24,080
Speaker 3: over for the last decade is the New York Times

898
01:04:24,080 --> 01:04:28,560
Speaker 3: bestseller list. Let's face it, you know, the Big Five.

899
01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:34,920
Speaker 3: This book business, the trade book business is so based

900
01:04:34,960 --> 01:04:39,240
Speaker 3: on the mega, the mega breakout book. You know, a

901
01:04:39,280 --> 01:04:42,840
Speaker 3: publisher or a retail bookstore chain has a good year

902
01:04:42,880 --> 01:04:45,160
Speaker 3: or back. A bad year could be based on one author,

903
01:04:45,560 --> 01:04:46,600
Speaker 3: could be based on one.

904
01:04:46,440 --> 01:04:48,440
Speaker 2: Book, what Sarah J.

905
01:04:48,680 --> 01:04:51,400
Speaker 3: Moss did for Bloomsbury the last year or two, or

906
01:04:52,000 --> 01:04:58,160
Speaker 3: you know this, you know some of these romanticy breakout stars,

907
01:04:58,200 --> 01:05:04,120
Speaker 3: the TikTok the book talk things. It's so that has

908
01:05:05,160 --> 01:05:08,320
Speaker 3: so much has changed in the last even just twenty

909
01:05:08,360 --> 01:05:13,640
Speaker 3: four months that the appreciation for those that have reached

910
01:05:13,680 --> 01:05:17,919
Speaker 3: to the audiences. And even over the last just year,

911
01:05:19,000 --> 01:05:24,000
Speaker 3: I've seen a dramatic investment of publishers and authors where

912
01:05:24,040 --> 01:05:29,160
Speaker 3: the author is now holding back more approval on the tours,

913
01:05:29,600 --> 01:05:34,560
Speaker 3: on the branding, and almost every author now is investing.

914
01:05:34,600 --> 01:05:38,120
Speaker 3: An author is a brand. So for any New York

915
01:05:38,120 --> 01:05:43,040
Speaker 3: Times bestseller, they're not necessarily sending you to the publisher's

916
01:05:43,080 --> 01:05:46,440
Speaker 3: website to learn about my tour. They want the direct

917
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:52,440
Speaker 3: relationship with the reader. We are working and so many

918
01:05:52,520 --> 01:05:56,440
Speaker 3: authors are now coming to us directly and the author.

919
01:05:56,640 --> 01:05:59,800
Speaker 3: The rise of the author is a brand. The rise

920
01:05:59,840 --> 01:06:03,760
Speaker 3: of the author is even creating new dynamics for how

921
01:06:03,760 --> 01:06:07,760
Speaker 3: the publisher is catering to keep that best selling author.

922
01:06:08,400 --> 01:06:10,560
Speaker 3: It used to be just on the size of the

923
01:06:10,600 --> 01:06:13,000
Speaker 3: advance check and they go to auction and who got

924
01:06:13,040 --> 01:06:17,440
Speaker 3: the best You know, who negotiated the biggest upfront. Many

925
01:06:17,440 --> 01:06:21,440
Speaker 3: of these new author deals and agency deals are not

926
01:06:21,520 --> 01:06:24,920
Speaker 3: only author, show me your reach, show me your platform,

927
01:06:25,280 --> 01:06:26,880
Speaker 3: Show me what you're going to do to grow the

928
01:06:27,000 --> 01:06:30,640
Speaker 3: audience for my brand. How are you going to build

929
01:06:30,960 --> 01:06:34,480
Speaker 3: a sale for my backlist? You know, we've done such

930
01:06:35,120 --> 01:06:39,000
Speaker 3: The good thing about Libby's success in scale Bob is

931
01:06:39,120 --> 01:06:45,240
Speaker 3: unlike Amazon and Apple and Google, who have billions of

932
01:06:45,360 --> 01:06:51,000
Speaker 3: data points, Libby has billions of data points on how

933
01:06:51,040 --> 01:06:55,120
Speaker 3: a reader was looking for what to read next, where

934
01:06:55,160 --> 01:06:58,800
Speaker 3: they discovered it, how they came to the library, how

935
01:06:58,840 --> 01:07:02,560
Speaker 3: they came to a digital edition, where they borrowed the book,

936
01:07:02,640 --> 01:07:05,760
Speaker 3: how they open. All of this is anonymized and privacy

937
01:07:05,880 --> 01:07:10,600
Speaker 3: is sacred. But we have the aggregated data endpoint of

938
01:07:11,600 --> 01:07:14,720
Speaker 3: how a book was borrowed, where was used?

939
01:07:15,120 --> 01:07:16,920
Speaker 2: How? Just imagine this.

940
01:07:17,240 --> 01:07:20,360
Speaker 3: I presented a at a publisher conference in New York

941
01:07:20,440 --> 01:07:23,360
Speaker 3: earlier this year called the u S Book Show, to

942
01:07:23,400 --> 01:07:26,480
Speaker 3: an audience of eight hundred New York and US and

943
01:07:26,760 --> 01:07:31,120
Speaker 3: international publishers, and I asked this question, could you ever

944
01:07:31,200 --> 01:07:36,760
Speaker 3: imagine a day where your acquisition editor, your author, your

945
01:07:36,840 --> 01:07:41,000
Speaker 3: publisher knew where in the story you lost the reader?

946
01:07:41,880 --> 01:07:43,320
Speaker 2: Just imagine? Would you?

947
01:07:43,360 --> 01:07:46,160
Speaker 3: Would you In the music space, would you would your

948
01:07:46,200 --> 01:07:49,040
Speaker 3: would your creator like to know where in the track

949
01:07:49,240 --> 01:07:49,960
Speaker 3: that they say? No?

950
01:07:50,280 --> 01:07:54,880
Speaker 2: Not for me? Imagine? We showed I did a study.

951
01:07:54,920 --> 01:07:58,640
Speaker 3: I took one author, a very successful author, Janet Ivanovitch.

952
01:07:59,240 --> 01:08:03,320
Speaker 3: She has this series of Stephanie Plum who's a protagonist

953
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:10,520
Speaker 3: in these murder mysteries, and Stephanie started. Janovitz started with

954
01:08:10,600 --> 01:08:13,200
Speaker 3: One for the Road, and every one of these murder

955
01:08:13,280 --> 01:08:16,439
Speaker 3: mysteries with Stephanie plum has. I think the most recent

956
01:08:16,479 --> 01:08:18,519
Speaker 3: one was The Dirty thirty. You know, they all had

957
01:08:18,560 --> 01:08:21,760
Speaker 3: the number. And she started her career, did the first

958
01:08:21,800 --> 01:08:24,799
Speaker 3: three books, one of the big five, and her ebooks

959
01:08:24,800 --> 01:08:25,680
Speaker 3: and audio came up.

960
01:08:25,720 --> 01:08:28,240
Speaker 2: And I actually know on average.

961
01:08:28,080 --> 01:08:32,120
Speaker 3: The completion rate where people when those who fell in

962
01:08:32,160 --> 01:08:36,280
Speaker 3: love with the Stephanie Plump stories, where seventy five percent

963
01:08:36,600 --> 01:08:38,639
Speaker 3: read seventy five percent or more. Where did you lose

964
01:08:38,640 --> 01:08:40,400
Speaker 3: the reader? I know where they lost the reader? What

965
01:08:40,520 --> 01:08:43,519
Speaker 3: chapter page? I mean the aggregate of hundreds of millions

966
01:08:43,520 --> 01:08:47,200
Speaker 3: of sessions. She then went to the second publisher, and

967
01:08:47,240 --> 01:08:50,680
Speaker 3: we noticed over this thirty year history that when this

968
01:08:50,840 --> 01:08:54,400
Speaker 3: second publisher brought out a dozen books, they didn't read

969
01:08:54,439 --> 01:08:56,880
Speaker 3: as far into the e they didn't listen as far

970
01:08:56,920 --> 01:09:01,400
Speaker 3: in the audio that represented her voice. She lost hundreds

971
01:09:01,400 --> 01:09:04,360
Speaker 3: of millions of minutes of people listening to her story.

972
01:09:05,040 --> 01:09:07,320
Speaker 3: And the only thing different I could tell was she

973
01:09:07,439 --> 01:09:11,800
Speaker 3: changed publishers. And you would say no, actually, when they

974
01:09:11,840 --> 01:09:14,280
Speaker 3: went to number two, it went up. Oh, and so

975
01:09:14,320 --> 01:09:17,360
Speaker 3: the first publisher said, oh, well, she had a following.

976
01:09:17,720 --> 01:09:19,720
Speaker 3: By the time they got to book four, people had

977
01:09:19,720 --> 01:09:23,280
Speaker 3: heard of her. That wasn't it, Because after twelve books

978
01:09:23,320 --> 01:09:25,679
Speaker 3: she went to publisher three and it dropped down again.

979
01:09:26,520 --> 01:09:28,960
Speaker 2: And then she went to original publisher and it stayed

980
01:09:29,000 --> 01:09:29,519
Speaker 2: low again.

981
01:09:30,120 --> 01:09:33,040
Speaker 3: What happened at publisher too while she was there with

982
01:09:33,120 --> 01:09:38,760
Speaker 3: these dozen books Janet Ivanovitch's books, people completed on average

983
01:09:38,800 --> 01:09:42,519
Speaker 3: almost more than seven eight nine percent of the entire story.

984
01:09:43,360 --> 01:09:46,679
Speaker 3: I have to say the editor who worked with Janet

985
01:09:46,720 --> 01:09:50,280
Speaker 3: Ivanovitch during those years knew how to get that story

986
01:09:50,320 --> 01:09:52,599
Speaker 3: to the listener in a way that engaged the reader

987
01:09:52,640 --> 01:09:55,479
Speaker 3: and kept them in trance with the story longer. I

988
01:09:55,600 --> 01:09:58,479
Speaker 3: just have I can't say why the readers left or

989
01:09:58,520 --> 01:10:00,720
Speaker 3: stuck around, but I just have the d they did.

990
01:10:01,760 --> 01:10:05,200
Speaker 3: These are the kind of untold insights we now have

991
01:10:05,400 --> 01:10:10,600
Speaker 3: with publishers and authors, and we are willing protecting privacy,

992
01:10:10,720 --> 01:10:14,960
Speaker 3: anonymize aggregated data and with the permission of libraries and

993
01:10:15,040 --> 01:10:19,120
Speaker 3: our suppliers. Are these are the data points that are

994
01:10:19,120 --> 01:10:24,360
Speaker 3: going to change how we build audience for our suppliers

995
01:10:24,400 --> 01:10:30,120
Speaker 3: and their authors.

996
01:10:33,240 --> 01:10:37,439
Speaker 1: Okay, I have to ask because of the incredible volume

997
01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:41,479
Speaker 1: of books read on Libby. Why is there not a

998
01:10:41,560 --> 01:10:45,559
Speaker 1: Libby chart which would ultimately even eclipse the New York

999
01:10:45,640 --> 01:10:46,280
Speaker 1: Times chart.

1000
01:10:48,280 --> 01:10:52,880
Speaker 3: Well, we do share, and I think People Magazine in

1001
01:10:52,920 --> 01:10:57,800
Speaker 3: the Spring usually has an exclusive with Overdrive. We have

1002
01:10:57,960 --> 01:11:01,000
Speaker 3: given USA Today, and we do have a feed on

1003
01:11:01,080 --> 01:11:04,920
Speaker 3: the most read books, and we do give every institution,

1004
01:11:05,120 --> 01:11:10,280
Speaker 3: and we do operate dashboards reporting this out, so the

1005
01:11:10,360 --> 01:11:14,680
Speaker 3: most popular books open, read and consumed. We published this,

1006
01:11:15,360 --> 01:11:18,840
Speaker 3: and we publish it on format for audience. So I

1007
01:11:18,840 --> 01:11:21,640
Speaker 3: can tell you for adult fiction, for adult nonfiction, for

1008
01:11:21,880 --> 01:11:25,960
Speaker 3: ya young adult, I can tell you by subject, by genre,

1009
01:11:26,120 --> 01:11:32,959
Speaker 3: by sub subgenre, so you know, when you know Amish

1010
01:11:33,080 --> 01:11:37,000
Speaker 3: romance was a hot thing and everyone got into Amish romance,

1011
01:11:37,840 --> 01:11:41,280
Speaker 3: we could tell you in Amish romance whether it was

1012
01:11:41,360 --> 01:11:42,880
Speaker 3: Kensington or Harlequin.

1013
01:11:42,960 --> 01:11:45,120
Speaker 1: Who is there, Thomas, Well, let me give you an

1014
01:11:45,160 --> 01:11:49,160
Speaker 1: example from the music business. Traditionally it's been the Billboard chart.

1015
01:11:49,360 --> 01:11:54,680
Speaker 1: Different people provided that data. That is manipulated data. What

1016
01:11:54,800 --> 01:11:58,000
Speaker 1: I mean, it is not pure numbers. They adjust and

1017
01:11:58,080 --> 01:12:02,040
Speaker 1: they wait. So despite my publicity, everybody in the music

1018
01:12:02,080 --> 01:12:06,960
Speaker 1: business now relies on the Spotify Top fifty. All the

1019
01:12:07,040 --> 01:12:11,200
Speaker 1: numbers are available to everybody. Wouldn't this be a benefit

1020
01:12:11,240 --> 01:12:14,320
Speaker 1: to everybody to essentially have a Libby chart.

1021
01:12:15,280 --> 01:12:20,320
Speaker 3: Yes, and we do provide this information. It's just that

1022
01:12:20,360 --> 01:12:23,720
Speaker 3: we're trying to find a partner that wants to platform

1023
01:12:23,760 --> 01:12:28,639
Speaker 3: it for more ubiquitous discovery. So first of the year,

1024
01:12:29,080 --> 01:12:31,840
Speaker 3: we publish, at the end of the year our stats

1025
01:12:32,360 --> 01:12:36,120
Speaker 3: this year, and by the way, on a typical week

1026
01:12:36,920 --> 01:12:42,520
Speaker 3: we have through We also the ways people come to

1027
01:12:42,560 --> 01:12:45,960
Speaker 3: discover a book and benefit from a piece of content

1028
01:12:47,080 --> 01:12:53,040
Speaker 3: in Libby could start in ten thousand starting points. You

1029
01:12:53,080 --> 01:12:56,560
Speaker 3: could be at your local library, in the library searching

1030
01:12:56,680 --> 01:13:00,559
Speaker 3: on the public catalog where you could see a QR

1031
01:13:00,680 --> 01:13:03,479
Speaker 3: code at the end of a shelf, saying did you

1032
01:13:03,640 --> 01:13:05,679
Speaker 3: know this book's available in Libby?

1033
01:13:05,760 --> 01:13:06,439
Speaker 2: And you know?

1034
01:13:07,000 --> 01:13:11,320
Speaker 3: So people come into Libby. We have about five hundred

1035
01:13:11,400 --> 01:13:17,280
Speaker 3: third parties who take overdrive catalog feeds in a dynamic APIs,

1036
01:13:17,920 --> 01:13:21,320
Speaker 3: So you could start anywhere in the planet, find a book,

1037
01:13:21,360 --> 01:13:23,960
Speaker 3: wind up at the library, get to Libby, borrow the book,

1038
01:13:24,000 --> 01:13:25,120
Speaker 3: open a.

1039
01:13:25,120 --> 01:13:28,919
Speaker 1: Little bit slower, you say, just like the Amazon partner

1040
01:13:29,040 --> 01:13:36,000
Speaker 1: program that you're saying, certain enterprises, if people access there

1041
01:13:36,160 --> 01:13:37,800
Speaker 1: and go to Libby, you pay them.

1042
01:13:39,439 --> 01:13:40,439
Speaker 2: We don't pay them.

1043
01:13:40,720 --> 01:13:46,559
Speaker 3: But I'm just saying the way we report on top

1044
01:13:46,720 --> 01:13:53,080
Speaker 3: circulating books, we have more data and we slice it

1045
01:13:53,120 --> 01:13:56,080
Speaker 3: and dice it for the benefit of First of all,

1046
01:13:56,120 --> 01:14:00,800
Speaker 3: informing our partners are supply chain stakeholders, publishers, as we

1047
01:14:00,960 --> 01:14:04,320
Speaker 3: let them know how they're performing, how they're trending. So

1048
01:14:04,439 --> 01:14:06,479
Speaker 3: if you let's say you're a publisher or travel books,

1049
01:14:06,560 --> 01:14:09,759
Speaker 3: let's say ebooks, and you want to get market share,

1050
01:14:09,880 --> 01:14:13,120
Speaker 3: you're a lonely planning You're competing against Rick Steves and

1051
01:14:13,400 --> 01:14:17,720
Speaker 3: you know five other travel book you know voters, and

1052
01:14:18,080 --> 01:14:22,360
Speaker 3: you know all the others. You want to know how

1053
01:14:22,360 --> 01:14:25,719
Speaker 3: am I performing in my category? How's my market share?

1054
01:14:26,200 --> 01:14:29,160
Speaker 3: Am I trending up or down? Are they buying my

1055
01:14:29,280 --> 01:14:33,400
Speaker 3: Europe or they only just buying my Disney Disney World

1056
01:14:33,479 --> 01:14:37,759
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six. So you are trying to improve sell

1057
01:14:37,800 --> 01:14:42,000
Speaker 3: through and market analytics, we can provide you down to

1058
01:14:42,120 --> 01:14:46,240
Speaker 3: almost the zip code, just like the Bouchers or the

1059
01:14:46,320 --> 01:14:49,600
Speaker 3: Neils sins would tell you how you're performing at retail

1060
01:14:49,800 --> 01:14:54,080
Speaker 3: or some of the other data services overdrive. First of all,

1061
01:14:54,120 --> 01:14:58,080
Speaker 3: we provide the publishers so the supply chain sees real

1062
01:14:58,200 --> 01:15:01,960
Speaker 3: time which institutions bought their book, and they have a

1063
01:15:02,120 --> 01:15:04,800
Speaker 3: clue on how many units, what was paid, and how

1064
01:15:04,800 --> 01:15:08,680
Speaker 3: they're performing. With so much of this data, we do

1065
01:15:08,760 --> 01:15:11,240
Speaker 3: have the ability to put out the Libby fifty or

1066
01:15:11,240 --> 01:15:12,200
Speaker 3: the Libby hundred.

1067
01:15:12,520 --> 01:15:14,919
Speaker 2: But we could do it, and we do it for schools.

1068
01:15:14,960 --> 01:15:16,800
Speaker 3: We do it in the classroom, We do it for

1069
01:15:16,880 --> 01:15:19,920
Speaker 3: every grade, we do it for every community. I can

1070
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:23,200
Speaker 3: tell you in the Pacific Northwest what's trending and how

1071
01:15:23,240 --> 01:15:26,800
Speaker 3: it's doing down in Louisiana and the parishes. We have

1072
01:15:27,120 --> 01:15:28,280
Speaker 3: more data than most.

1073
01:15:28,840 --> 01:15:34,920
Speaker 1: You talked about writers becoming brands analogizing to Spotify. Once again,

1074
01:15:34,960 --> 01:15:39,400
Speaker 1: Spotify has Spotify for artists, so not only the company,

1075
01:15:39,439 --> 01:15:41,320
Speaker 1: which in this case could be a record company in

1076
01:15:41,360 --> 01:15:46,920
Speaker 1: your situation, a publisher that the artist himself can see

1077
01:15:47,200 --> 01:15:51,759
Speaker 1: where his music is being played and therefore direct marketing

1078
01:15:51,840 --> 01:15:55,559
Speaker 1: activities to that location, assuming they want to. Is there

1079
01:15:55,600 --> 01:15:58,880
Speaker 1: anything equivalent in the Overdrive atmosphere.

1080
01:15:58,920 --> 01:16:01,960
Speaker 2: Absolutely sure, well obviously we have.

1081
01:16:03,840 --> 01:16:05,920
Speaker 3: You know, it was kind of funny in the early

1082
01:16:06,040 --> 01:16:09,559
Speaker 3: days when we were introducing public Library. I had an

1083
01:16:09,600 --> 01:16:13,360
Speaker 3: author who reached out to me and just was praising

1084
01:16:13,400 --> 01:16:16,800
Speaker 3: me in Overdrive, and I couldn't figure out why this

1085
01:16:16,920 --> 01:16:21,960
Speaker 3: discreet author was praising me and how we sold thousands

1086
01:16:22,000 --> 01:16:26,840
Speaker 3: of units of this really small, unknown nonfiction book. And

1087
01:16:26,880 --> 01:16:32,000
Speaker 3: then this was early in our library lending experience. The

1088
01:16:32,040 --> 01:16:34,439
Speaker 3: title of his book was something like A thousand and

1089
01:16:34,520 --> 01:16:36,559
Speaker 3: one and I forget what the rest of the book was.

1090
01:16:37,120 --> 01:16:39,639
Speaker 3: And so, you know, in the early days when libraries

1091
01:16:39,640 --> 01:16:42,120
Speaker 3: were buying books and they put up a list of

1092
01:16:42,320 --> 01:16:46,080
Speaker 3: books you could borrow, they just alpha sorted it. And

1093
01:16:47,400 --> 01:16:49,800
Speaker 3: so people came into a library and they say, well,

1094
01:16:49,840 --> 01:16:52,000
Speaker 3: I want to try this, and the first thing that

1095
01:16:52,080 --> 01:16:55,120
Speaker 3: came up was one thousand and one you know whatever.

1096
01:16:55,160 --> 01:16:57,680
Speaker 3: It was one thousand and one Ways to Tie your

1097
01:16:57,680 --> 01:17:01,800
Speaker 3: Shoe and I, you're on, how are we selling all this?

1098
01:17:01,880 --> 01:17:05,360
Speaker 3: And I said, everybody's just trying the new system. So

1099
01:17:05,600 --> 01:17:08,240
Speaker 3: he was Alpha blessed. They all bought it. People said

1100
01:17:08,280 --> 01:17:10,040
Speaker 3: I want to try it. Let me try this thing

1101
01:17:10,080 --> 01:17:13,040
Speaker 3: I heard about, and so they downloaded this book. And

1102
01:17:13,120 --> 01:17:16,439
Speaker 3: so so the bottom line is it has evolved and

1103
01:17:16,560 --> 01:17:19,760
Speaker 3: merchandised every single library today. When you go into an

1104
01:17:19,880 --> 01:17:23,479
Speaker 3: LA County Library or LA Public Library to two separate systems.

1105
01:17:24,000 --> 01:17:27,439
Speaker 3: And here's a little Libby hack for your listeners. Libby

1106
01:17:27,479 --> 01:17:31,040
Speaker 3: supports your ability to get multiple library cards. So if

1107
01:17:31,080 --> 01:17:33,440
Speaker 3: you have a card from the County of Los Angeles

1108
01:17:33,760 --> 01:17:36,519
Speaker 3: and you have a library card from lapl the City

1109
01:17:36,560 --> 01:17:40,840
Speaker 3: Library downtown, when you're in Libby searching or looking for

1110
01:17:40,880 --> 01:17:45,080
Speaker 3: something to read, you will get the benefit of both collections.

1111
01:17:45,240 --> 01:17:48,200
Speaker 3: And they both have different collections. They may have many

1112
01:17:48,200 --> 01:17:50,720
Speaker 3: of the same but one may have a shorter wait

1113
01:17:50,800 --> 01:17:53,639
Speaker 3: list for that new bestseller. So with Libby, you can

1114
01:17:53,680 --> 01:17:56,080
Speaker 3: have multiple library cards and work Beverly Hills or in

1115
01:17:56,160 --> 01:18:00,400
Speaker 3: Huntington Longbridge, Orange County. We're in every library in California,

1116
01:18:00,600 --> 01:18:03,040
Speaker 3: so when your listeners have at least two or three

1117
01:18:03,080 --> 01:18:06,599
Speaker 3: library cards, this also and so for us to say

1118
01:18:06,640 --> 01:18:10,120
Speaker 3: what's the best circuing book in Southern cal we could

1119
01:18:10,120 --> 01:18:13,439
Speaker 3: look at every library in southern cal and we can

1120
01:18:13,520 --> 01:18:16,840
Speaker 3: say for this region, this is trending. These are the

1121
01:18:16,880 --> 01:18:21,360
Speaker 3: best by audience, by category, by genre. So it's we

1122
01:18:21,479 --> 01:18:24,760
Speaker 3: have board data and we are offering it up. As

1123
01:18:24,800 --> 01:18:28,960
Speaker 3: I said, just protecting privacy and permissions.

1124
01:18:28,400 --> 01:18:32,479
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to pull the lens all the way back.

1125
01:18:32,920 --> 01:18:37,040
Speaker 1: Such an overdrive is not dominant. Just in the landscape.

1126
01:18:37,680 --> 01:18:41,920
Speaker 1: I want to talk about digital books and digital reading.

1127
01:18:44,160 --> 01:18:48,960
Speaker 1: There are many people, especially older people, who have fetishized

1128
01:18:49,280 --> 01:18:51,639
Speaker 1: the physical book. They will go.

1129
01:18:51,600 --> 01:18:52,080
Speaker 2: On and on.

1130
01:18:52,240 --> 01:18:54,680
Speaker 1: I like having something in my hands, I get a

1131
01:18:54,680 --> 01:18:59,120
Speaker 1: headache when I read digitally, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And they

1132
01:18:59,600 --> 01:19:04,559
Speaker 1: will trumpet, you know, any success in the independent world,

1133
01:19:04,680 --> 01:19:07,240
Speaker 1: the new guy who runs Barnes and Noble, who has

1134
01:19:07,320 --> 01:19:11,040
Speaker 1: you know, different inventory and different stories. Having said that too,

1135
01:19:11,080 --> 01:19:16,000
Speaker 1: elements people of that age remember going to school, you

1136
01:19:16,120 --> 01:19:18,800
Speaker 1: went to high school, you went to college. There were

1137
01:19:18,840 --> 01:19:24,080
Speaker 1: a million physical books and to transport them around that

1138
01:19:24,200 --> 01:19:29,320
Speaker 1: was a big schlip. So putting out some of the issues.

1139
01:19:30,160 --> 01:19:34,440
Speaker 1: You and me both know that going to educational institutions

1140
01:19:34,479 --> 01:19:39,120
Speaker 1: in the future it will all be digital for numerous reasons,

1141
01:19:39,280 --> 01:19:43,080
Speaker 1: portability and the issue of being able to replace for

1142
01:19:43,280 --> 01:19:52,280
Speaker 1: changes instantaneously. My question is to what degree is that happening?

1143
01:19:53,120 --> 01:19:55,720
Speaker 1: And I'll use this is not a perfect example, but

1144
01:19:55,760 --> 01:20:00,280
Speaker 1: I'll use the classic example of Kodak Digital's coming, I mean,

1145
01:20:00,320 --> 01:20:03,439
Speaker 1: Digital's coming never came. Then in one year digital wiped

1146
01:20:03,479 --> 01:20:10,240
Speaker 1: out Kodak. So what is the future of digital reading?

1147
01:20:11,080 --> 01:20:12,320
Speaker 1: Vis a vi physical?

1148
01:20:14,160 --> 01:20:17,439
Speaker 3: The print book will never go away. And for good reason,

1149
01:20:17,600 --> 01:20:21,280
Speaker 3: and just to be clear, we are a mission company

1150
01:20:21,360 --> 01:20:24,600
Speaker 3: with a vision of a world enlightened by reading and

1151
01:20:24,800 --> 01:20:29,840
Speaker 3: access to information, education and opportunity, and print books are

1152
01:20:29,920 --> 01:20:35,920
Speaker 3: still essential and print books have created so many advances

1153
01:20:35,960 --> 01:20:38,639
Speaker 3: that we are benefiting from. I'll give you one example.

1154
01:20:39,360 --> 01:20:43,280
Speaker 3: We are working with a company in the UK called

1155
01:20:43,400 --> 01:20:47,640
Speaker 3: Ulpuscroft and the gentleman who is the founder of the

1156
01:20:47,680 --> 01:20:53,520
Speaker 3: foundation there, he invented what's now a beloved product by seniors.

1157
01:20:54,120 --> 01:20:59,439
Speaker 3: It's called large print. Before this, gentleman said, why don't

1158
01:20:59,479 --> 01:21:04,440
Speaker 3: we make a book where the type size is accessible

1159
01:21:05,000 --> 01:21:08,600
Speaker 3: to those that are aging or have failing vision or

1160
01:21:08,720 --> 01:21:13,880
Speaker 3: macula degeneration or high corrective lenses, so the print book

1161
01:21:13,960 --> 01:21:17,680
Speaker 3: will always be around. The print book is one of

1162
01:21:17,680 --> 01:21:21,760
Speaker 3: the most beloved gifts. Giving a digital book.

1163
01:21:21,800 --> 01:21:23,519
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, wait wait, I gotta blow the whistle

1164
01:21:23,600 --> 01:21:27,200
Speaker 1: on this because I see you being very political, so

1165
01:21:27,240 --> 01:21:29,800
Speaker 1: I gotta play devil's advocate, which is really the truth.

1166
01:21:30,720 --> 01:21:33,920
Speaker 1: Everyone who uses a digital reading device knows that you

1167
01:21:33,960 --> 01:21:39,599
Speaker 1: can adjust the type size, which is extremely advantageous for

1168
01:21:39,720 --> 01:21:46,480
Speaker 1: elder readers. B CDs music physical music was an incredible

1169
01:21:46,520 --> 01:21:51,479
Speaker 1: gift that is not a gift anymore. Yes, there are

1170
01:21:51,640 --> 01:21:56,360
Speaker 1: stores selling vinyl. It's a deminimous business. Okay, it gets

1171
01:21:56,360 --> 01:21:58,439
Speaker 1: a lot of press. If you look at it, I

1172
01:21:58,439 --> 01:22:00,600
Speaker 1: don't want to want to throw the it's really a

1173
01:22:00,720 --> 01:22:05,360
Speaker 1: z it on the ass of consumption. So yes, a

1174
01:22:05,520 --> 01:22:11,400
Speaker 1: coffee table book, etc. Those will exist, just like people

1175
01:22:11,439 --> 01:22:16,400
Speaker 1: have vinyl collections. Okay, but in reality, isn't it going

1176
01:22:16,520 --> 01:22:21,080
Speaker 1: to be the extreme outlier and everybody's really going to

1177
01:22:21,120 --> 01:22:22,080
Speaker 1: be reading digitally?

1178
01:22:23,520 --> 01:22:23,840
Speaker 2: Well?

1179
01:22:23,880 --> 01:22:30,760
Speaker 3: As you astutey said, education, it's a foregone future. We

1180
01:22:30,840 --> 01:22:35,200
Speaker 3: saw it start in higher ed. It actually started in

1181
01:22:35,240 --> 01:22:38,760
Speaker 3: the professional space when I got started, when I got

1182
01:22:38,800 --> 01:22:41,800
Speaker 3: started thinking about a future where one day, when this

1183
01:22:41,920 --> 01:22:45,840
Speaker 3: blinking box showed up on my kitchen table forty years ago,

1184
01:22:46,280 --> 01:22:48,639
Speaker 3: said one day on the screen, I should have access

1185
01:22:48,680 --> 01:22:52,280
Speaker 3: to every print book in the world. And I was

1186
01:22:52,320 --> 01:22:54,880
Speaker 3: a little too early, and we finally got there.

1187
01:22:55,120 --> 01:22:55,559
Speaker 2: But at.

1188
01:22:57,160 --> 01:23:07,360
Speaker 3: To be I am being politically diplomatic because we love

1189
01:23:07,439 --> 01:23:10,519
Speaker 3: the print book and we're not competing against it. But

1190
01:23:10,680 --> 01:23:15,040
Speaker 3: you are correct, depending on how far you set your future,

1191
01:23:15,320 --> 01:23:19,720
Speaker 3: crystal Ball, in a thousand years, will print book be

1192
01:23:19,800 --> 01:23:24,320
Speaker 3: in museums and archives. That's going to be probably where

1193
01:23:24,360 --> 01:23:27,599
Speaker 3: some of these relics live, like we relish, you know,

1194
01:23:27,960 --> 01:23:32,800
Speaker 3: the Gutenberg Bibles and the relics of prior decades and civilizations.

1195
01:23:33,800 --> 01:23:36,880
Speaker 3: I do believe in the digital future, and every book

1196
01:23:36,920 --> 01:23:41,559
Speaker 3: being printed today does have a digital simultaneous except for

1197
01:23:41,640 --> 01:23:46,959
Speaker 3: some you know international and you know small foreign markets.

1198
01:23:47,640 --> 01:23:53,680
Speaker 3: The future is purely digital. But we have a bigger problem,

1199
01:23:53,840 --> 01:23:58,080
Speaker 3: and that is long form reading and book consumption is

1200
01:23:58,200 --> 01:24:02,560
Speaker 3: on the decline. And this is also coming into headlines

1201
01:24:02,600 --> 01:24:07,400
Speaker 3: more mainstream recently, and it hasn't been new. The decline

1202
01:24:07,439 --> 01:24:12,360
Speaker 3: of reading by adult reading of long form print books

1203
01:24:12,800 --> 01:24:15,400
Speaker 3: has been on the decline since the invention of television.

1204
01:24:15,920 --> 01:24:17,559
Speaker 3: If you look at the pie chart of all of

1205
01:24:17,600 --> 01:24:23,840
Speaker 3: our disposable time for entertainment or consumer activities, that slice

1206
01:24:23,920 --> 01:24:26,639
Speaker 3: that used to be long form adult book reading by

1207
01:24:26,680 --> 01:24:32,560
Speaker 3: every demographic age, gender, race has been shrinking.

1208
01:24:33,439 --> 01:24:37,200
Speaker 2: When the Internet came up. It shrunk again when online

1209
01:24:37,200 --> 01:24:43,360
Speaker 2: social media, when online gambling, every time gaming gaming set tops,

1210
01:24:44,160 --> 01:24:47,280
Speaker 2: every time something new comes on you can do on

1211
01:24:47,320 --> 01:24:51,160
Speaker 2: a device with a screen or with a speaker. Long

1212
01:24:51,200 --> 01:24:56,559
Speaker 2: form digital books podcasts now, but podcasts actually helped create

1213
01:24:57,479 --> 01:25:01,600
Speaker 2: set the stage for growing the audiobook business. But the

1214
01:25:01,800 --> 01:25:06,400
Speaker 2: book print industry has many factors that are causing stress.

1215
01:25:07,200 --> 01:25:10,760
Speaker 2: The decline of their product is a consumer product in

1216
01:25:10,800 --> 01:25:14,680
Speaker 2: the market and it's not just domestic. The decline of

1217
01:25:14,760 --> 01:25:18,960
Speaker 2: book reading in the UK. In Germany is actually a

1218
01:25:19,080 --> 01:25:23,080
Speaker 2: little faster than we're experiencing in the US well, because

1219
01:25:23,120 --> 01:25:27,960
Speaker 2: we came from two communities that had more literate baseline,

1220
01:25:28,160 --> 01:25:30,920
Speaker 2: so you know, they live longer. In Germany, every community

1221
01:25:30,960 --> 01:25:34,840
Speaker 2: has multiple independent retail bookstores in every neighborhood. It's a

1222
01:25:34,840 --> 01:25:35,559
Speaker 2: book culture.

1223
01:25:36,160 --> 01:25:40,559
Speaker 3: But the decline of book consumption, the number of buyers

1224
01:25:40,600 --> 01:25:45,120
Speaker 3: globally for print books is on the decline. So digital

1225
01:25:45,479 --> 01:25:49,760
Speaker 3: is an answer. Audiobooks is a dramatic bright spot for

1226
01:25:49,880 --> 01:25:54,200
Speaker 3: this industry, and we are constantly innovating how do we

1227
01:25:54,320 --> 01:25:57,439
Speaker 3: grow the market for this consumer product called a book

1228
01:25:57,520 --> 01:26:00,559
Speaker 3: or long form reading. And I'm excited to say we're

1229
01:26:00,600 --> 01:26:04,960
Speaker 3: having great success working with our educational and library institutions

1230
01:26:05,560 --> 01:26:08,559
Speaker 3: and finally for the most astute publishers being better and

1231
01:26:08,640 --> 01:26:12,120
Speaker 3: more appreciated for how we are trying to reverse this

1232
01:26:12,320 --> 01:26:17,280
Speaker 3: decline in demand for the product. Now, music, the market

1233
01:26:17,320 --> 01:26:21,320
Speaker 3: grows every day. Everybody wants music, and music is not

1234
01:26:21,479 --> 01:26:26,599
Speaker 3: going away. But long form reading of books that's under

1235
01:26:26,640 --> 01:26:29,439
Speaker 3: attack and that has been on the decline, and there's

1236
01:26:29,479 --> 01:26:31,000
Speaker 3: no answer for it right now.

1237
01:26:31,160 --> 01:26:37,320
Speaker 1: Okay, point of information in colleges universities. What percentage of

1238
01:26:37,360 --> 01:26:40,600
Speaker 1: books are digital as opposed to physical today.

1239
01:26:42,200 --> 01:26:48,320
Speaker 3: Well, the college textbook curriculum market has gone nearly one

1240
01:26:48,400 --> 01:26:53,920
Speaker 3: hundred percent digital as a result of the publishers themselves

1241
01:26:54,920 --> 01:26:59,360
Speaker 3: creating the digital learning platform, so they could not only

1242
01:26:59,400 --> 01:27:04,000
Speaker 3: sell the tech book, but then sell these Many of

1243
01:27:04,040 --> 01:27:07,440
Speaker 3: your listeners may remember, like in the nineties and two thousands,

1244
01:27:07,439 --> 01:27:09,559
Speaker 3: when they were in college and they got their textbook,

1245
01:27:09,600 --> 01:27:12,439
Speaker 3: there was a CD rom in the back and that

1246
01:27:12,479 --> 01:27:17,280
Speaker 3: contained the supplemental materials. So if you're Pierson or Gale

1247
01:27:17,320 --> 01:27:21,639
Speaker 3: Ahote Mifflin or McGraw hill Wiley trying to sell your

1248
01:27:22,120 --> 01:27:25,519
Speaker 3: textbook for the state of Texas or Illinois for history

1249
01:27:25,560 --> 01:27:28,360
Speaker 3: one oh one, and you get a big adoption, that's

1250
01:27:28,400 --> 01:27:32,040
Speaker 3: a big deal. Your textbook gets adopted for a three

1251
01:27:32,160 --> 01:27:34,920
Speaker 3: or five year cycle. That could be seven figures for

1252
01:27:35,000 --> 01:27:40,520
Speaker 3: that book and that imprint. So to do that, publishers

1253
01:27:40,560 --> 01:27:45,599
Speaker 3: had to compete and add special value add Before the Internet,

1254
01:27:45,840 --> 01:27:51,440
Speaker 3: they used to offer teachers editions and quizes and supplements.

1255
01:27:51,920 --> 01:27:53,960
Speaker 3: Then it went to the CD in the back of

1256
01:27:54,000 --> 01:27:58,840
Speaker 3: the textbook. Now, for the last fifteen twenty years, publishers

1257
01:27:58,840 --> 01:28:03,960
Speaker 3: have gone direct and created ancillary supplemental value add So

1258
01:28:04,120 --> 01:28:08,120
Speaker 3: right now every piece of coursewear or curriculum may be

1259
01:28:08,320 --> 01:28:11,080
Speaker 3: offered directly from the publisher, is part of a learning

1260
01:28:11,600 --> 01:28:17,559
Speaker 3: system or also you've seen the rise Amazon, Barnes and

1261
01:28:17,560 --> 01:28:24,960
Speaker 3: Noble Education follow it, check vital Source. Many other platforms

1262
01:28:25,000 --> 01:28:29,920
Speaker 3: have aggregated all the digital college textbooks and either offer

1263
01:28:30,160 --> 01:28:34,160
Speaker 3: pay as you go or a subscription. So that market

1264
01:28:34,200 --> 01:28:38,280
Speaker 3: is pretty far along on the digital transformation. If I

1265
01:28:38,360 --> 01:28:43,280
Speaker 3: go to K twelve, now we're at the infancy last

1266
01:28:43,360 --> 01:28:45,879
Speaker 3: year twenty twenty four. If I look at the spend,

1267
01:28:46,160 --> 01:28:48,960
Speaker 3: and it's a big number. For the one hundred and

1268
01:28:48,960 --> 01:28:54,320
Speaker 3: fifteen thousand K twelve schools in the US alone, the

1269
01:28:54,439 --> 01:29:02,800
Speaker 3: spend on coursewear, textbook, curriculum, school library, special ad, summer reading, intervention,

1270
01:29:04,120 --> 01:29:08,840
Speaker 3: English language learning is a second language for immigrants. It's

1271
01:29:08,880 --> 01:29:11,639
Speaker 3: in the billions. And yet if we look at where

1272
01:29:11,680 --> 01:29:15,280
Speaker 3: are they in the transformation from analog, physical to digital

1273
01:29:16,280 --> 01:29:22,320
Speaker 3: ebooks has not really entered the elementary school, the middle school,

1274
01:29:22,400 --> 01:29:26,000
Speaker 3: or the high school at any scale yet, except that

1275
01:29:26,160 --> 01:29:29,519
Speaker 3: Overdrive has been evangelizing and growing that market.

1276
01:29:29,520 --> 01:29:29,800
Speaker 2: Today.

1277
01:29:29,800 --> 01:29:32,799
Speaker 3: I'm proud to say we are in sixty thousand schools,

1278
01:29:33,320 --> 01:29:36,360
Speaker 3: but still the use of an ebook or a digital

1279
01:29:36,439 --> 01:29:40,400
Speaker 3: audiobook in the classroom in K twelve is still a.

1280
01:29:40,280 --> 01:29:41,960
Speaker 2: Single digit low.

1281
01:29:42,720 --> 01:29:45,880
Speaker 3: And this is one of the biggest growth opportunities of

1282
01:29:45,920 --> 01:29:49,880
Speaker 3: the next five years for every author and creator. If

1283
01:29:49,920 --> 01:29:53,840
Speaker 3: you have a book, fiction or nonfiction that is appropriate

1284
01:29:54,120 --> 01:29:58,840
Speaker 3: for a school for education, school library, some are reading entertainment,

1285
01:29:58,960 --> 01:30:03,920
Speaker 3: learning English to whatever. The next five years, you should

1286
01:30:03,960 --> 01:30:06,760
Speaker 3: be thinking purely, how do I get in on this.

1287
01:30:07,040 --> 01:30:10,439
Speaker 3: It's about to happen and our team at overdrive and

1288
01:30:10,560 --> 01:30:15,200
Speaker 3: Libby is even driving parents to discover that they're kids.

1289
01:30:15,640 --> 01:30:17,920
Speaker 3: For all those that have children in the schools, we

1290
01:30:18,000 --> 01:30:22,000
Speaker 3: have a Libby for students app called Sora.

1291
01:30:22,320 --> 01:30:24,880
Speaker 2: It's called Sra. The app is.

1292
01:30:24,840 --> 01:30:29,280
Speaker 3: Free, but for your student to benefit from it, you

1293
01:30:29,439 --> 01:30:31,720
Speaker 3: have you know, just like you can't walk into a

1294
01:30:31,760 --> 01:30:34,360
Speaker 3: school and go into the library. They're pretty locked down,

1295
01:30:34,439 --> 01:30:38,840
Speaker 3: not like the public library. Everyone's welcome. Sora is available

1296
01:30:38,880 --> 01:30:41,880
Speaker 3: to sixty thousand schools in the US and we have

1297
01:30:42,040 --> 01:30:45,840
Speaker 3: millions of students. Our biggest success we just hit a

1298
01:30:45,880 --> 01:30:48,360
Speaker 3: milestone with New York City Public Schools.

1299
01:30:48,880 --> 01:30:50,439
Speaker 2: New York City Public Schools and.

1300
01:30:50,400 --> 01:30:54,400
Speaker 3: The leadership of Fabulous Library and Melissa Jacobs, who runs

1301
01:30:54,400 --> 01:30:58,640
Speaker 3: the New York City Public School libraries. She has delivered

1302
01:30:58,880 --> 01:31:03,080
Speaker 3: just in the last two places. Students in those classrooms

1303
01:31:03,120 --> 01:31:08,960
Speaker 3: have opened and benefited from ten million ebooks through the

1304
01:31:09,000 --> 01:31:13,480
Speaker 3: New York City Public School SORA collection is called Citywide

1305
01:31:13,560 --> 01:31:17,080
Speaker 3: Digital Library. You could be in any of the five boroughs,

1306
01:31:17,360 --> 01:31:23,160
Speaker 3: you have a student in any of their charter schools, STEM, academies, whatever, ps, whatever,

1307
01:31:23,280 --> 01:31:26,640
Speaker 3: one oh one, you have SORA and you have the

1308
01:31:26,720 --> 01:31:30,400
Speaker 3: ability for your student to benefit twenty four to seven

1309
01:31:30,640 --> 01:31:36,400
Speaker 3: just like Libby, except SORA is built in student learning, gamification, reading,

1310
01:31:36,560 --> 01:31:41,720
Speaker 3: daily reading challenges and the like. So our engagement for

1311
01:31:41,960 --> 01:31:46,000
Speaker 3: growing the audience and the transition to digital is accelerating.

1312
01:31:46,840 --> 01:31:52,320
Speaker 3: We're seeing in corporate America a broad adoption for employees

1313
01:31:52,960 --> 01:31:58,720
Speaker 3: to have benefit for professional development wellness. HR departments are

1314
01:31:58,760 --> 01:32:03,440
Speaker 3: adding digital lie libraries. Our first digital library was Microsoft

1315
01:32:03,479 --> 01:32:05,760
Speaker 3: Corporation twenty years ago.

1316
01:32:05,960 --> 01:32:06,679
Speaker 2: Back in the day.

1317
01:32:06,760 --> 01:32:10,280
Speaker 3: Mike Bushman was a corporate librarian and building one hundred

1318
01:32:10,320 --> 01:32:11,559
Speaker 3: in the campus in Redmond.

1319
01:32:12,400 --> 01:32:14,280
Speaker 2: And this was while Bomber was running it.

1320
01:32:14,800 --> 01:32:17,880
Speaker 3: And I've had relations and we dealt with Bill and

1321
01:32:17,920 --> 01:32:21,759
Speaker 3: Melinda in the day, and he said, I am buying

1322
01:32:22,240 --> 01:32:26,880
Speaker 3: millions of dollars of programming and coding books every year,

1323
01:32:27,320 --> 01:32:29,719
Speaker 3: and I have to buy hundreds of units and drop

1324
01:32:29,760 --> 01:32:33,120
Speaker 3: them into hundreds of locations around Redmond and Seattle and

1325
01:32:33,160 --> 01:32:36,720
Speaker 3: San Francisco. I don't want to do that. So they

1326
01:32:36,800 --> 01:32:41,160
Speaker 3: created the first corporate digital library with Overdrive and all

1327
01:32:41,200 --> 01:32:46,080
Speaker 3: of the books on cybersecurity or programming in JavaScript or AI,

1328
01:32:46,240 --> 01:32:49,760
Speaker 3: this or that or whatever. They then started making a

1329
01:32:49,840 --> 01:32:53,960
Speaker 3: digital library for their workforce globally. Anytime anywhere you need

1330
01:32:53,960 --> 01:32:56,760
Speaker 3: a book and how to program this thing, you got it.

1331
01:32:57,520 --> 01:33:01,720
Speaker 3: Corporate Knowledge centers. During COVID, they provided all of this

1332
01:33:01,880 --> 01:33:05,160
Speaker 3: comfort and wellness and you know, am I okay and

1333
01:33:05,320 --> 01:33:10,519
Speaker 3: all of that you know, access during these you know,

1334
01:33:10,640 --> 01:33:14,160
Speaker 3: troubling and uncertain times. So the momentum we're seeing in

1335
01:33:14,200 --> 01:33:20,040
Speaker 3: corporate libraries. You know, our largest corporate partner is a

1336
01:33:20,200 --> 01:33:25,200
Speaker 3: US Department of Defense. About fifteen twenty years ago, every

1337
01:33:25,280 --> 01:33:27,840
Speaker 3: branch of the military said we want to serve our

1338
01:33:27,880 --> 01:33:33,120
Speaker 3: community worldwide. So Navy Knowledge Online Services one point seven

1339
01:33:33,240 --> 01:33:37,440
Speaker 3: million readers. It's not only the active military and the officers,

1340
01:33:37,960 --> 01:33:40,720
Speaker 3: and it's a it's a students at the War College.

1341
01:33:41,280 --> 01:33:44,800
Speaker 3: You could be on assignment in a nuclear submarine and

1342
01:33:44,880 --> 01:33:48,160
Speaker 3: you your commandant says, we want you to read Jefferson's War.

1343
01:33:48,320 --> 01:33:51,439
Speaker 3: Listen to the audiobook in your bunk. They are getting

1344
01:33:51,439 --> 01:33:54,120
Speaker 3: this from the US Department of Defense through a platform,

1345
01:33:54,200 --> 01:33:58,120
Speaker 3: and they're opening it with Libby. So we are building

1346
01:33:58,360 --> 01:34:03,240
Speaker 3: and growing an evangelize seeing books and reading and education

1347
01:34:03,600 --> 01:34:10,720
Speaker 3: and comfort and entertainment globally and overdrives. Footprint is fortunately

1348
01:34:10,840 --> 01:34:15,599
Speaker 3: expanding and helping publishers and authors offset some of these

1349
01:34:15,640 --> 01:34:18,600
Speaker 3: other challenges they're seeing in retail.

1350
01:34:18,640 --> 01:34:20,600
Speaker 2: Or some of the legacy print businesses.

1351
01:34:28,320 --> 01:34:30,759
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the elephant in the room, which is funding.

1352
01:34:31,960 --> 01:34:35,840
Speaker 1: These are public institutions, these libraries who presently have an

1353
01:34:35,880 --> 01:34:38,760
Speaker 1: administration who says they don't want to give as much

1354
01:34:38,800 --> 01:34:41,240
Speaker 1: money to the libraries. Tell us about that.

1355
01:34:42,600 --> 01:34:48,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a very unfortunate and tragic condition that I

1356
01:34:48,360 --> 01:34:52,000
Speaker 3: don't want to open this stack. But at tax coming

1357
01:34:52,040 --> 01:34:56,840
Speaker 3: to our public education and schools and libraries was a

1358
01:34:56,920 --> 01:35:03,120
Speaker 3: political playbook executed in the last election cycle, and it

1359
01:35:03,240 --> 01:35:11,400
Speaker 3: created false narratives that these institutions are being utilized for

1360
01:35:11,600 --> 01:35:19,880
Speaker 3: political or cultural agendas. That was nonsense, and we've been

1361
01:35:19,920 --> 01:35:25,360
Speaker 3: dealing with for about four years now. Libraries and librarians

1362
01:35:25,400 --> 01:35:30,520
Speaker 3: and educators and public schools and school librarians being villainized

1363
01:35:31,080 --> 01:35:35,680
Speaker 3: and coming under attack for a false narrative for a

1364
01:35:35,680 --> 01:35:41,320
Speaker 3: political gain. Unfortunately, this has created a toxic environment in

1365
01:35:41,400 --> 01:35:47,840
Speaker 3: many communities and has created local pushback and has challenged

1366
01:35:47,880 --> 01:35:51,360
Speaker 3: so many of the underlying principles that have made every

1367
01:35:51,400 --> 01:35:58,120
Speaker 3: community better because a public librarian educated their children, helped

1368
01:35:58,120 --> 01:36:01,799
Speaker 3: those seeking a job from divided, a public internet terminal

1369
01:36:01,880 --> 01:36:05,559
Speaker 3: for those that had no broadband in their home, and

1370
01:36:05,880 --> 01:36:10,759
Speaker 3: that continued when the recent election cycle put a party

1371
01:36:10,880 --> 01:36:14,800
Speaker 3: into the White House, and they came after this April

1372
01:36:15,200 --> 01:36:18,200
Speaker 3: and took the funding from the Institute, from Museum and

1373
01:36:18,240 --> 01:36:22,960
Speaker 3: Library services, and that playbook now is being replicated in

1374
01:36:23,080 --> 01:36:24,560
Speaker 3: several state capitals.

1375
01:36:25,120 --> 01:36:29,400
Speaker 2: It's tragic. Instead of investing in.

1376
01:36:29,560 --> 01:36:35,800
Speaker 3: Bringing America back and educating our next generation workforce on

1377
01:36:35,840 --> 01:36:39,519
Speaker 3: the skills and making them competitive, instead of making sure

1378
01:36:40,200 --> 01:36:45,200
Speaker 3: every person, regardless of their background, could compete with proficiency

1379
01:36:45,360 --> 01:36:50,520
Speaker 3: and talent in language in English speaking, they are defunding

1380
01:36:50,720 --> 01:36:57,320
Speaker 3: the safety net community organizations that are essential and overdrive.

1381
01:36:57,400 --> 01:37:01,400
Speaker 3: And I've been on the record what has happened is

1382
01:37:03,080 --> 01:37:10,080
Speaker 3: unfortunate and tragic, and in many communities, the most impacted

1383
01:37:10,640 --> 01:37:15,439
Speaker 3: will be the small and rural librarians who because a

1384
01:37:15,560 --> 01:37:21,600
Speaker 3: few dollars that trickled down from Washington to their state library,

1385
01:37:22,120 --> 01:37:24,960
Speaker 3: it got distributed like here in Ohio to our eighty

1386
01:37:25,000 --> 01:37:29,479
Speaker 3: eight counties. That is essential service money. That money in

1387
01:37:29,560 --> 01:37:33,240
Speaker 3: some rural and farm communities allowed the librarian to go

1388
01:37:33,320 --> 01:37:36,640
Speaker 3: in and open the door or pay for the broadband

1389
01:37:36,720 --> 01:37:39,600
Speaker 3: that the community needed to come in and sit in

1390
01:37:39,600 --> 01:37:42,000
Speaker 3: the parking lot so they could check their email or

1391
01:37:42,040 --> 01:37:45,120
Speaker 3: see if their job and they could find a job.

1392
01:37:46,760 --> 01:37:51,920
Speaker 3: Just like it's just a tragic situation unfolding. I'm proud

1393
01:37:51,960 --> 01:37:55,719
Speaker 3: to say that in many of the larger metro areas,

1394
01:37:56,320 --> 01:38:01,080
Speaker 3: because they've built multiple sources of funding, that some of

1395
01:38:01,120 --> 01:38:05,639
Speaker 3: these cuts may not impact the material budgets, the money

1396
01:38:05,640 --> 01:38:09,200
Speaker 3: that they use to buy content, books and subscriptions. But

1397
01:38:09,360 --> 01:38:12,680
Speaker 3: it's a real concern, and the greater concerns are in

1398
01:38:12,720 --> 01:38:15,840
Speaker 3: the small and rural communities that will be impacted even

1399
01:38:15,920 --> 01:38:20,960
Speaker 3: more so. You know, we have stories every day where

1400
01:38:21,560 --> 01:38:28,439
Speaker 3: the impact of the presidential executive orders or some of

1401
01:38:28,479 --> 01:38:34,479
Speaker 3: the state capitals who have taken and said in the

1402
01:38:34,560 --> 01:38:37,800
Speaker 3: protection of minors, this false narrative that we need to

1403
01:38:37,840 --> 01:38:43,920
Speaker 3: protect our children and implemented some of these playbooks. Most

1404
01:38:43,920 --> 01:38:47,559
Speaker 3: of the voters who put those elected officials and offers

1405
01:38:47,840 --> 01:38:49,719
Speaker 3: are going to be the ones that suffer the most.

1406
01:38:50,840 --> 01:38:54,400
Speaker 3: That's a reality, and it's happening every day. It's not

1407
01:38:54,640 --> 01:38:58,639
Speaker 3: something that's coming. It happens every day. Now the money's

1408
01:38:58,640 --> 01:39:02,400
Speaker 3: been cut, they're fighting, flying back bits and pieces or

1409
01:39:02,439 --> 01:39:05,559
Speaker 3: trying to find alternate sources of funding, and Overdrive as

1410
01:39:05,600 --> 01:39:06,840
Speaker 3: a partner in that effort.

1411
01:39:07,080 --> 01:39:12,799
Speaker 1: Okay, let's switch gears completely to Canopy. Explain how Canopy works.

1412
01:39:13,160 --> 01:39:17,160
Speaker 1: Public is very familiar with streaming and they're very familiar

1413
01:39:17,240 --> 01:39:22,880
Speaker 1: with their rights involved and a lot of money. So

1414
01:39:22,960 --> 01:39:24,240
Speaker 1: how does Canopy work.

1415
01:39:25,880 --> 01:39:33,200
Speaker 3: Canopy is an amazing value add for everyone who has

1416
01:39:33,240 --> 01:39:39,959
Speaker 3: an interest in film, and the value add of Canopy

1417
01:39:40,120 --> 01:39:44,640
Speaker 3: is I think based on threefold and the reason Overdrive

1418
01:39:44,680 --> 01:39:47,719
Speaker 3: acquired the business it was the best we to've ever seen.

1419
01:39:48,360 --> 01:39:52,640
Speaker 3: Overdrive built a digital video streaming platform for schools and

1420
01:39:52,720 --> 01:39:58,040
Speaker 3: libraries and we launched it and about a decade plus ago,

1421
01:39:58,760 --> 01:40:02,200
Speaker 3: a startup in West in Australia by an amazing entrepreneur

1422
01:40:02,240 --> 01:40:06,639
Speaker 3: by the name of Olivia Humphrey from Perth. She saw

1423
01:40:06,680 --> 01:40:10,240
Speaker 3: a problem in some of the universities in Western Australia,

1424
01:40:10,920 --> 01:40:15,520
Speaker 3: the universities who were teaching film and or were signing

1425
01:40:15,920 --> 01:40:21,800
Speaker 3: documentaries and film in the classroom could not supply the

1426
01:40:21,840 --> 01:40:25,120
Speaker 3: teachers the classroom or the students with access to the

1427
01:40:25,240 --> 01:40:30,200
Speaker 3: videos or the films. And so she negotiated, like with

1428
01:40:30,360 --> 01:40:35,280
Speaker 3: the film studios, could I get permission to create a

1429
01:40:35,320 --> 01:40:40,320
Speaker 3: platform for academic libraries to license a digital video and

1430
01:40:40,439 --> 01:40:45,840
Speaker 3: stream it for these educational purposes. So Canopy was born

1431
01:40:45,920 --> 01:40:52,400
Speaker 3: in Australia, it launched, and today still Canopy is worldwide

1432
01:40:52,439 --> 01:40:58,240
Speaker 3: in more university libraries and public libraries. After several years

1433
01:40:58,280 --> 01:41:02,080
Speaker 3: of success in the university library, Olivia with her young

1434
01:41:02,200 --> 01:41:05,760
Speaker 3: family moved to San Francisco and said, let's get into

1435
01:41:05,800 --> 01:41:09,400
Speaker 3: the big markets the US North America. And then she

1436
01:41:09,520 --> 01:41:14,280
Speaker 3: started to sell the universities in North America. But she said, well,

1437
01:41:14,320 --> 01:41:16,960
Speaker 3: since I'm in libraries, and since we do have films

1438
01:41:16,960 --> 01:41:21,640
Speaker 3: of interest for public libraries, documentary, foreign films, some you know,

1439
01:41:21,800 --> 01:41:27,240
Speaker 3: film noir and boutique, and lots of unbelievable art films.

1440
01:41:28,000 --> 01:41:33,680
Speaker 3: The curation of the Canopy collection is so eclectic that

1441
01:41:33,880 --> 01:41:38,960
Speaker 3: people love Canopy because of the curation. What is in

1442
01:41:39,040 --> 01:41:45,160
Speaker 3: those catalogs and what have been selected from these out

1443
01:41:45,200 --> 01:41:48,760
Speaker 3: of the way book festivals, and we have a team

1444
01:41:49,240 --> 01:41:55,760
Speaker 3: is just outstanding. Now today, Canopy has evolved because when

1445
01:41:55,800 --> 01:41:59,479
Speaker 3: she introduced it to public library she did not have

1446
01:41:59,600 --> 01:42:02,760
Speaker 3: the appreciation for how public libraries worked and how they

1447
01:42:02,800 --> 01:42:05,400
Speaker 3: could their sources of funding, and how it might use

1448
01:42:05,520 --> 01:42:08,720
Speaker 3: in a consumer space. So when she came to the

1449
01:42:08,800 --> 01:42:13,040
Speaker 3: US and I saw the excellence of their product, of

1450
01:42:13,160 --> 01:42:17,000
Speaker 3: their user experience, I approached Olivia and I said, look,

1451
01:42:18,000 --> 01:42:20,880
Speaker 3: you have done what I've dreamed of doing. You have

1452
01:42:21,160 --> 01:42:25,880
Speaker 3: an unbelievable catalog, you have a great platform and user experience.

1453
01:42:26,240 --> 01:42:28,879
Speaker 3: And they also integrated with all the set top players,

1454
01:42:29,479 --> 01:42:33,400
Speaker 3: so you can get Canopy on Roku, Apple TV, or

1455
01:42:33,479 --> 01:42:38,120
Speaker 3: Samsung or any of your smart TVs. In addition, Canopy

1456
01:42:38,360 --> 01:42:41,120
Speaker 3: ka n o, py dot com. You can run at

1457
01:42:41,160 --> 01:42:45,000
Speaker 3: anything with the browser. And of course I natively run

1458
01:42:45,040 --> 01:42:48,680
Speaker 3: the Canopy app on iOS or on my Android smartphone.

1459
01:42:49,080 --> 01:42:51,599
Speaker 3: So they had they had the best platform, they had

1460
01:42:51,640 --> 01:42:55,759
Speaker 3: the best catalog, they had the best user experience. I said, Olivia,

1461
01:42:56,680 --> 01:43:00,680
Speaker 3: I either want to partner with you, buy you, or

1462
01:43:01,320 --> 01:43:04,920
Speaker 3: I'm going to be competing with you. And it took

1463
01:43:04,960 --> 01:43:07,240
Speaker 3: a twist in turn, she went to a private equity

1464
01:43:07,280 --> 01:43:11,240
Speaker 3: and eventually we acquired it about four or five years ago.

1465
01:43:11,840 --> 01:43:17,240
Speaker 3: And so today Canopy is the most valuable streaming product.

1466
01:43:17,520 --> 01:43:20,680
Speaker 3: We just got from Yahoo and many other media the

1467
01:43:20,880 --> 01:43:26,479
Speaker 3: five streaming best platforms. Regardless of price. Canopy. You'll never

1468
01:43:26,520 --> 01:43:29,080
Speaker 3: get asked for a credit card, you'll never see an

1469
01:43:29,120 --> 01:43:34,519
Speaker 3: ad and it is purely delight So Canopy has one

1470
01:43:34,520 --> 01:43:38,439
Speaker 3: of the largest film libraries and over the last several

1471
01:43:38,520 --> 01:43:41,800
Speaker 3: years now that Overdrive with our reach, we've scaled it

1472
01:43:41,880 --> 01:43:46,120
Speaker 3: up into public libraries. We've changed the user experience to

1473
01:43:46,200 --> 01:43:50,400
Speaker 3: make it simple for public libraries and patrons. So today

1474
01:43:50,479 --> 01:43:54,280
Speaker 3: the public library can add Canopy. Like I'll be in

1475
01:43:54,360 --> 01:43:57,880
Speaker 3: San Francisco seeing our partners as San Francisco Public Library.

1476
01:43:57,920 --> 01:44:02,120
Speaker 3: It's available at Los Angeles Public Lives Library and they

1477
01:44:02,240 --> 01:44:07,760
Speaker 3: subscribe to Canopy. And Canopy has a core collection that

1478
01:44:08,080 --> 01:44:12,920
Speaker 3: is adding thousands of films every year. Because some of

1479
01:44:12,920 --> 01:44:19,000
Speaker 3: the rights come in and out, we negotiate with major suppliers.

1480
01:44:19,080 --> 01:44:21,400
Speaker 3: Like one of the biggest deals I ever signed it

1481
01:44:21,520 --> 01:44:25,080
Speaker 3: Overdrive was when we did a five year exclusives with

1482
01:44:25,200 --> 01:44:29,879
Speaker 3: BBC Studios in London. Because we have so many Anglo

1483
01:44:30,080 --> 01:44:33,800
Speaker 3: file you know, they just love everything British and the

1484
01:44:33,840 --> 01:44:38,080
Speaker 3: downtown Abbey crowd and all that. We signed a multi

1485
01:44:38,160 --> 01:44:43,080
Speaker 3: year exclusive for library and institution with BBC and it's

1486
01:44:43,120 --> 01:44:52,120
Speaker 3: been extraordinarily popular. We now are negotiating next to Amazon, Prime, Hulu, Disney,

1487
01:44:52,400 --> 01:44:57,400
Speaker 3: Netflix and the others at all the big studios. So

1488
01:44:57,439 --> 01:45:00,920
Speaker 3: we when we acquired Canopy, they we had a film

1489
01:45:00,960 --> 01:45:04,080
Speaker 3: team and the head of our business units Southern cal

1490
01:45:04,640 --> 01:45:07,320
Speaker 3: We have a team in California because we are working

1491
01:45:07,320 --> 01:45:10,559
Speaker 3: with all the major studios. So whether it's lions Gate

1492
01:45:10,800 --> 01:45:16,320
Speaker 3: or Warner Brothers, we are in the rooms negotiating alongside.

1493
01:45:17,000 --> 01:45:20,160
Speaker 3: When they're carving up the out the geos and they're

1494
01:45:20,160 --> 01:45:23,600
Speaker 3: coming up the territories, and when they're carving up the platforms,

1495
01:45:23,880 --> 01:45:28,640
Speaker 3: we're in there saying we want institution. We want to

1496
01:45:28,800 --> 01:45:32,360
Speaker 3: have day and day or whenever it's available for those markets.

1497
01:45:32,840 --> 01:45:37,000
Speaker 3: We want public library, academic library, and some of the

1498
01:45:37,040 --> 01:45:42,080
Speaker 3: other governmental special institutional markets. And just like we do

1499
01:45:42,240 --> 01:45:45,519
Speaker 3: with the Amazons and the Netflix, we may get it

1500
01:45:45,560 --> 01:45:50,040
Speaker 3: for a particular term when we're dealing with the mgs

1501
01:45:50,080 --> 01:45:53,880
Speaker 3: and you know the restrictions, and of course the whole

1502
01:45:53,960 --> 01:45:58,360
Speaker 3: video community has their own kind of rights management, you know,

1503
01:45:59,160 --> 01:46:04,320
Speaker 3: technical qualifications and we of course abide by all that

1504
01:46:05,560 --> 01:46:09,000
Speaker 3: and for the patron, it's just a win. If you

1505
01:46:09,080 --> 01:46:12,759
Speaker 3: are subscribing to the half a dozen to dozen monthly

1506
01:46:12,840 --> 01:46:16,200
Speaker 3: subscriptions that you use on and off, or maybe less

1507
01:46:16,280 --> 01:46:19,320
Speaker 3: or more. In the peacocks and this plus and that plus,

1508
01:46:20,080 --> 01:46:24,760
Speaker 3: you may discover that about a high percentage of the

1509
01:46:24,880 --> 01:46:26,520
Speaker 3: movies the documentaries.

1510
01:46:26,800 --> 01:46:28,759
Speaker 2: We have an amazing kids collection.

1511
01:46:28,880 --> 01:46:32,040
Speaker 3: It's called Canopy Kids, and it's unlimited and you could

1512
01:46:32,040 --> 01:46:35,040
Speaker 3: put Canopy Kids, set it on your tablet, give it

1513
01:46:35,080 --> 01:46:39,080
Speaker 3: to your young child and they can just go unlimited use.

1514
01:46:39,680 --> 01:46:43,000
Speaker 3: And then of course we have feature films award winners,

1515
01:46:43,040 --> 01:46:45,400
Speaker 3: and now Canopy is giving us a platform to do

1516
01:46:45,520 --> 01:46:49,760
Speaker 3: originals and exclusives. The very exciting time that we're in

1517
01:46:49,800 --> 01:46:54,760
Speaker 3: the streaming video business and we are negotiating alongside the

1518
01:46:54,800 --> 01:46:58,040
Speaker 3: other big platforms. We're just saying we want it for

1519
01:46:58,120 --> 01:47:01,800
Speaker 3: this market. I have complaints. Now in Singapore, we have

1520
01:47:01,880 --> 01:47:05,800
Speaker 3: such a fantastic success. The entire country of Singapore just

1521
01:47:06,520 --> 01:47:08,960
Speaker 3: is almost standard on Libby and Sora.

1522
01:47:09,240 --> 01:47:10,839
Speaker 2: And they added Canopy.

1523
01:47:11,240 --> 01:47:14,240
Speaker 3: But when Singapore National Library wants to buy for every

1524
01:47:14,240 --> 01:47:17,600
Speaker 3: citizen and the five million plus citizens Canopy, they go

1525
01:47:17,680 --> 01:47:20,160
Speaker 3: how come, I don't have these blockbusters. They go, well,

1526
01:47:21,080 --> 01:47:23,280
Speaker 3: I didn't want to write a check for the whole

1527
01:47:23,320 --> 01:47:25,639
Speaker 3: Southeast Asia. I didn't want to put up money. When

1528
01:47:25,680 --> 01:47:28,120
Speaker 3: we negotiate, I said, how much do you want for

1529
01:47:28,200 --> 01:47:30,960
Speaker 3: the US? How much if I throw in Canada? You

1530
01:47:31,040 --> 01:47:34,320
Speaker 3: know it, it is negotiating for territories and rights. So

1531
01:47:34,400 --> 01:47:36,559
Speaker 3: I didn't actually, at the time we were signing up

1532
01:47:36,600 --> 01:47:40,320
Speaker 3: for that big deal, say how much for Singapore. But

1533
01:47:40,400 --> 01:47:42,400
Speaker 3: now I got to go back to all those studios

1534
01:47:42,439 --> 01:47:45,320
Speaker 3: and say, you know, let's face it, Crazy rich As.

1535
01:47:45,640 --> 01:47:48,680
Speaker 3: That's you know, when Crazy rich As came out as

1536
01:47:48,680 --> 01:47:50,640
Speaker 3: a Warder Brother film or you know, and we've been

1537
01:47:50,680 --> 01:47:54,200
Speaker 3: selling the books like crazy you know heaven Chan. Of

1538
01:47:54,240 --> 01:47:57,360
Speaker 3: course they wanted that. But so it's a really exciting time.

1539
01:47:57,479 --> 01:48:00,720
Speaker 1: Oh okay, but explain the money to me. I don't

1540
01:48:00,760 --> 01:48:03,640
Speaker 1: quite understand you're bidding on these rights. Where does the

1541
01:48:03,680 --> 01:48:06,839
Speaker 1: money come from? Because it's free to the end users.

1542
01:48:07,479 --> 01:48:10,160
Speaker 3: Correct, just like I do to the libraries or the

1543
01:48:10,280 --> 01:48:14,240
Speaker 3: universities or their corporations. I show you my catalog. You

1544
01:48:14,280 --> 01:48:16,800
Speaker 3: want to add canopy, We have multiple ways you can

1545
01:48:16,840 --> 01:48:20,360
Speaker 3: add it. And since we've added, we created these we

1546
01:48:20,479 --> 01:48:24,760
Speaker 3: call plus packs so let's say you're a smaller community,

1547
01:48:25,240 --> 01:48:29,160
Speaker 3: we don't have the budget. But the reality is, you know,

1548
01:48:29,960 --> 01:48:32,799
Speaker 3: just as we talk about the evolution of streaming video

1549
01:48:33,000 --> 01:48:37,080
Speaker 3: and library in this ecosystem, if you asked me five

1550
01:48:37,160 --> 01:48:41,360
Speaker 3: years ago, pre COVID, what was the number one circulating

1551
01:48:41,880 --> 01:48:45,479
Speaker 3: reason a product or the reason people went to their

1552
01:48:45,520 --> 01:48:48,840
Speaker 3: local public life or in the US, it was to

1553
01:48:48,840 --> 01:48:53,320
Speaker 3: borrow a DVD or Blu Ray. I could tell you

1554
01:48:53,360 --> 01:48:57,320
Speaker 3: in many metro markets, just pre COVID, let's say twenty eighteen,

1555
01:48:57,400 --> 01:49:00,519
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, if you looked at what was the foot

1556
01:49:00,560 --> 01:49:04,800
Speaker 3: traffic to the libraries throughout the United States, one of

1557
01:49:04,840 --> 01:49:09,519
Speaker 3: the top reasons people went was to pick up that

1558
01:49:09,640 --> 01:49:13,080
Speaker 3: DVD or Blu ray they reserved and they got from

1559
01:49:13,080 --> 01:49:15,360
Speaker 3: the library for free to take home for their family.

1560
01:49:16,479 --> 01:49:17,560
Speaker 2: Well, let's face.

1561
01:49:17,280 --> 01:49:21,920
Speaker 3: It, just like DVD and streaming video, and you know,

1562
01:49:22,400 --> 01:49:27,320
Speaker 3: vinyl is no longer available in big box and major retail,

1563
01:49:27,400 --> 01:49:31,880
Speaker 3: they've just gotten out of it libraries. Since COVID, the

1564
01:49:31,920 --> 01:49:36,000
Speaker 3: size of the retail foot space and public libraries for

1565
01:49:36,120 --> 01:49:40,600
Speaker 3: circulating DVDs and Bluberries has been shrinking and shrinking. For

1566
01:49:40,680 --> 01:49:44,960
Speaker 3: the same reason one foot traffic is down COVID killed it,

1567
01:49:45,880 --> 01:49:48,559
Speaker 3: and now they're fighting to bring back foot traffic, which

1568
01:49:48,640 --> 01:49:52,920
Speaker 3: has been building back. But unfortunately in many markets here,

1569
01:49:53,000 --> 01:49:57,000
Speaker 3: like in Cleveland, Ohio, we're overdrives headquartered, our biggest public

1570
01:49:57,120 --> 01:50:00,559
Speaker 3: libraries still are not at the twenty nineteen levels of

1571
01:50:00,880 --> 01:50:05,200
Speaker 3: visitors in their branches or foot traffic in their central library.

1572
01:50:04,960 --> 01:50:08,680
Speaker 3: So as a result, everything has been moving towards streaming.

1573
01:50:09,040 --> 01:50:12,040
Speaker 3: When the library wants they had canopy, they can either

1574
01:50:12,040 --> 01:50:15,000
Speaker 3: buy the whole collection and set a monthly budget and

1575
01:50:15,040 --> 01:50:18,080
Speaker 3: we can monitor in the usage and kind of throttle

1576
01:50:18,080 --> 01:50:21,000
Speaker 3: it because they're giving you as a user, Bob, if

1577
01:50:21,040 --> 01:50:24,599
Speaker 3: you go to Los Angeles Public Library, LAPL will give

1578
01:50:24,600 --> 01:50:29,360
Speaker 3: you each month maybe thirty tickets, and every time you

1579
01:50:29,400 --> 01:50:34,560
Speaker 3: want to watch a feature film, a documentary or children's childrens.

1580
01:50:34,040 --> 01:50:35,040
Speaker 2: Don't cost a ticket.

1581
01:50:35,560 --> 01:50:38,800
Speaker 3: You may see a blockbuster feature film and for you

1582
01:50:38,880 --> 01:50:41,839
Speaker 3: to borrow it for the window of seven days watching

1583
01:50:42,360 --> 01:50:46,519
Speaker 3: it might cost you two tickets. Doesn't cost you anything

1584
01:50:46,520 --> 01:50:50,080
Speaker 3: because the library's giving you tickets. But after let's say

1585
01:50:50,080 --> 01:50:52,160
Speaker 3: by the twentieth of the month, you've used up all

1586
01:50:52,200 --> 01:50:55,120
Speaker 3: your tickets, well then you got to wait till the

1587
01:50:55,160 --> 01:50:57,040
Speaker 3: first of the month, and then you could start over

1588
01:50:58,120 --> 01:51:00,880
Speaker 3: unless you had multiple library cards and go somewhere else.

1589
01:51:01,280 --> 01:51:05,360
Speaker 3: But the bottom line is the library will budget so

1590
01:51:05,560 --> 01:51:09,000
Speaker 3: much per year, so much per month. But with small

1591
01:51:09,120 --> 01:51:13,280
Speaker 3: libraries with no experience in the demand for streaming, Overdrive

1592
01:51:13,320 --> 01:51:15,960
Speaker 3: introduced what we call like we did for ebooks. We

1593
01:51:16,080 --> 01:51:21,240
Speaker 3: created all access, a bundle, flat fee unlimited. Overdrive introduced

1594
01:51:21,240 --> 01:51:24,639
Speaker 3: Canopy plus packs. So if you don't know the demand,

1595
01:51:24,800 --> 01:51:29,120
Speaker 3: you don't know what we have plus packs, staff favorites,

1596
01:51:29,520 --> 01:51:33,559
Speaker 3: all time classics. You want books for your kids, you

1597
01:51:33,600 --> 01:51:36,800
Speaker 3: could buy a Canopy plus fix for children, and we

1598
01:51:36,960 --> 01:51:40,160
Speaker 3: have tiered pricing. If you're in a little parish in

1599
01:51:40,200 --> 01:51:44,920
Speaker 3: Louisiana and your total population of five thousand, maybe for

1600
01:51:45,080 --> 01:51:49,000
Speaker 3: under five hundred bucks a year, every kid can stream.

1601
01:51:48,720 --> 01:51:50,520
Speaker 2: This all year long, unlimited.

1602
01:51:51,120 --> 01:51:54,519
Speaker 3: That same plus pack for Los Angeles Public Library might

1603
01:51:54,560 --> 01:51:57,479
Speaker 3: be twenty five hundred a year, and then it's an

1604
01:51:57,479 --> 01:52:01,519
Speaker 3: annual subscription, unlimited viewing. So then we have plus packs

1605
01:52:01,520 --> 01:52:05,120
Speaker 3: for World Seminar, all time classics, film noir. These are

1606
01:52:05,160 --> 01:52:10,599
Speaker 3: constantly building and we are giving actually institutions. So if

1607
01:52:10,640 --> 01:52:15,120
Speaker 3: you're in academic institutions and every year you're teaching multice

1608
01:52:15,120 --> 01:52:18,040
Speaker 3: Falcon and I have it. We might even give you

1609
01:52:18,120 --> 01:52:22,479
Speaker 3: the option to buy that title, have it for ten years,

1610
01:52:23,240 --> 01:52:27,160
Speaker 3: and only pay a small service fee annually. So, just

1611
01:52:27,320 --> 01:52:30,519
Speaker 3: like we did with our market evolving, if you give

1612
01:52:30,600 --> 01:52:35,719
Speaker 3: the institutional buyers multiple ways to buy, you will sell more,

1613
01:52:36,040 --> 01:52:39,880
Speaker 3: you will open new doors, and you will also evolve

1614
01:52:40,040 --> 01:52:42,960
Speaker 3: to see where the market and the demand and the

1615
01:52:43,000 --> 01:52:48,760
Speaker 3: budget will drive your growth. So libraries budget, we give

1616
01:52:48,760 --> 01:52:51,960
Speaker 3: them multiple options to suffice. We have a lot of

1617
01:52:52,000 --> 01:52:55,400
Speaker 3: budget for video. And if you're transitioning. Let's say you're

1618
01:52:55,560 --> 01:52:58,320
Speaker 3: lapl and you budget a million dollars. I'm making this

1619
01:52:58,439 --> 01:53:03,040
Speaker 3: up every year for new Blu rays or DVDs. You've

1620
01:53:03,080 --> 01:53:06,559
Speaker 3: been transitioning, so you're saying, well, we're going to start

1621
01:53:06,800 --> 01:53:11,360
Speaker 3: because the usage of the physical good is declining. As

1622
01:53:11,400 --> 01:53:15,160
Speaker 3: it declines, we're moving that budget and we're transitioning into canopy.

1623
01:53:15,520 --> 01:53:18,280
Speaker 3: So that's been going on for the last few years

1624
01:53:17,840 --> 01:53:19,520
Speaker 3: and it's accelerating.

1625
01:53:27,160 --> 01:53:32,799
Speaker 1: Okay, let's pitch back to a Libby. Libby is a menia. Okay,

1626
01:53:33,400 --> 01:53:36,040
Speaker 1: I should have been going to library from the time

1627
01:53:36,160 --> 01:53:39,680
Speaker 1: I can remember, big Reader, but Libby is a thing

1628
01:53:39,800 --> 01:53:44,920
Speaker 1: unto itself. Do you know what percentage of reading is

1629
01:53:44,960 --> 01:53:49,719
Speaker 1: done on Libby as opposed to physical Can you tell

1630
01:53:49,760 --> 01:53:55,600
Speaker 1: me what percentage Overdrive sales are compared to the overall

1631
01:53:55,720 --> 01:53:56,879
Speaker 1: market for books.

1632
01:53:58,520 --> 01:54:01,920
Speaker 2: I can give you some some general.

1633
01:54:02,960 --> 01:54:11,760
Speaker 3: Sense of scale and proportion because we obviously utilize industry reports.

1634
01:54:11,840 --> 01:54:15,799
Speaker 3: So there are several sources of the global book business

1635
01:54:15,800 --> 01:54:18,120
Speaker 3: in the United State, well, i'll say the United States

1636
01:54:18,160 --> 01:54:21,439
Speaker 3: book business, and one of them is from the AAP,

1637
01:54:21,840 --> 01:54:25,479
Speaker 3: which is the Association of American Publishers. And then there

1638
01:54:25,479 --> 01:54:29,840
Speaker 3: are some data services companies, the book scans that aggregate

1639
01:54:29,920 --> 01:54:33,000
Speaker 3: for the retailers, and they aggregate from the big box.

1640
01:54:34,440 --> 01:54:38,080
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of gaps when publishers sell direct

1641
01:54:38,280 --> 01:54:42,280
Speaker 3: that's under reported. We don't have the you know, all

1642
01:54:42,360 --> 01:54:46,040
Speaker 3: of the detail. Let's face religious Christian Bible sales, not

1643
01:54:46,160 --> 01:54:49,680
Speaker 3: all of that is always reported up. There's so much

1644
01:54:49,760 --> 01:54:51,760
Speaker 3: activity on direct to consumer.

1645
01:54:52,320 --> 01:54:53,160
Speaker 2: Do we know?

1646
01:54:53,720 --> 01:54:58,360
Speaker 3: Is Amazon sharing KDP numbers and Kindled direct and exclusives?

1647
01:54:58,960 --> 01:55:04,280
Speaker 3: So I could just give a sense. So in last year,

1648
01:55:04,880 --> 01:55:11,480
Speaker 3: Overdrive circulated around six hundred million digital books. This year

1649
01:55:11,720 --> 01:55:15,640
Speaker 3: will be probably around three quarters of a billion, seven

1650
01:55:15,720 --> 01:55:20,040
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty million. Now that's actual delivery and fulfillment

1651
01:55:20,120 --> 01:55:24,000
Speaker 3: of a full book. Now in addition to that, we

1652
01:55:24,200 --> 01:55:28,480
Speaker 3: had billions and billions of reader sessions opening a book,

1653
01:55:28,840 --> 01:55:31,120
Speaker 3: sampling a book. If you've been in the Libby, you know,

1654
01:55:31,320 --> 01:55:34,960
Speaker 3: before you borrow or get in line, you could open

1655
01:55:35,240 --> 01:55:37,240
Speaker 3: and go through ten percent for free.

1656
01:55:37,880 --> 01:55:38,800
Speaker 2: Say it's not for me.

1657
01:55:39,360 --> 01:55:44,320
Speaker 3: You're looking up a fiction book and you want an audiobook.

1658
01:55:44,720 --> 01:55:46,600
Speaker 3: You may want to say, let me listen. Do I

1659
01:55:46,680 --> 01:55:51,000
Speaker 3: like the narrator's voice. So our impact on how many

1660
01:55:51,080 --> 01:55:54,080
Speaker 3: books are open and listen to is in the hundreds

1661
01:55:54,120 --> 01:55:56,400
Speaker 3: of billions a year. But at the end of the day,

1662
01:55:56,480 --> 01:56:00,400
Speaker 3: I've delivered last year over six hundred million entire books

1663
01:56:00,440 --> 01:56:06,200
Speaker 3: to an end user who was authenticated, had a library

1664
01:56:06,240 --> 01:56:09,760
Speaker 3: card and got a book that I had permission, and

1665
01:56:09,800 --> 01:56:13,720
Speaker 3: we paid the publisher, the author got paid. Everyone wins.

1666
01:56:14,520 --> 01:56:17,760
Speaker 3: And in many cases I have authors and publishers thanking

1667
01:56:17,840 --> 01:56:21,680
Speaker 3: me because I discovered on a Libby I bought my

1668
01:56:21,800 --> 01:56:24,800
Speaker 3: print sales went up. I was just last week I

1669
01:56:24,840 --> 01:56:27,920
Speaker 3: was meeting with my partner in Fort Myers Lee County

1670
01:56:27,960 --> 01:56:31,720
Speaker 3: Library System, Southwest Florida by Naples and the and the

1671
01:56:31,840 --> 01:56:36,560
Speaker 3: librarian said, we used the demanded Libby to buy print.

1672
01:56:36,840 --> 01:56:39,879
Speaker 2: I go, I don't get I don't get any.

1673
01:56:39,880 --> 01:56:42,680
Speaker 3: Reward for that when the when the publishers are arguing

1674
01:56:42,680 --> 01:56:46,400
Speaker 3: and taking margin away. My discovery of your book in

1675
01:56:46,560 --> 01:56:50,680
Speaker 3: sampling is selling you books at retail, selling your print

1676
01:56:50,760 --> 01:56:55,760
Speaker 3: to other institutions. And we are fortunate that every day

1677
01:56:55,800 --> 01:56:58,600
Speaker 3: I'm getting the data showing that our impact on the

1678
01:56:58,640 --> 01:57:03,440
Speaker 3: growth of the audience for your product. Publisher, you should

1679
01:57:03,440 --> 01:57:07,120
Speaker 3: be paying us just for the placement in that Libby position,

1680
01:57:07,720 --> 01:57:11,440
Speaker 3: because we are getting hundreds of millions of impressions that

1681
01:57:11,560 --> 01:57:14,200
Speaker 3: lead to retail sales. But can I connect all those

1682
01:57:14,240 --> 01:57:14,800
Speaker 3: dots now?

1683
01:57:15,040 --> 01:57:15,240
Speaker 2: Wait?

1684
01:57:15,240 --> 01:57:18,400
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, when you say six hundred million, does that

1685
01:57:18,560 --> 01:57:23,120
Speaker 1: mean Overdrive bought six hundred million books or does that

1686
01:57:23,160 --> 01:57:26,480
Speaker 1: mean six hundred million people read Overdrive books?

1687
01:57:27,120 --> 01:57:30,840
Speaker 3: It means during calendar year twenty twenty four, I delivered

1688
01:57:31,000 --> 01:57:35,800
Speaker 3: to an authenticated end user, six six hundred million books

1689
01:57:35,840 --> 01:57:39,560
Speaker 3: were delivered. Maybe it's to three hundred million readers. Maybe

1690
01:57:39,560 --> 01:57:42,040
Speaker 3: it's you know, three hundred million people. Over the year.

1691
01:57:42,080 --> 01:57:44,600
Speaker 3: They averaged two each, one at one, one at fifty.

1692
01:57:44,640 --> 01:57:48,360
Speaker 3: I don't know, So it's all anonymoused because we respect

1693
01:57:48,400 --> 01:57:52,600
Speaker 3: privacy in that case, Let's take Los Angeles Public Library.

1694
01:57:53,040 --> 01:57:58,760
Speaker 3: Los Angeles Public Library last year was our top public

1695
01:57:58,920 --> 01:58:04,000
Speaker 3: library circing Libby books and they circulate on average over

1696
01:58:04,200 --> 01:58:10,000
Speaker 3: one million books a month now. Also, Los Angeles Public

1697
01:58:10,040 --> 01:58:19,440
Speaker 3: Library spends with overdrive to acquire multiple copies, licenses, new materials,

1698
01:58:19,880 --> 01:58:24,000
Speaker 3: bumps up the ability to service. Under these other models.

1699
01:58:24,440 --> 01:58:29,800
Speaker 3: They spend annually approximately almost ten million a year to

1700
01:58:29,920 --> 01:58:36,000
Speaker 3: keep their Libby catalog fresh, complete and current. So the

1701
01:58:36,160 --> 01:58:41,120
Speaker 3: library is spending one library in California and it's number

1702
01:58:41,120 --> 01:58:44,120
Speaker 3: one in circulation under the leadership of John Zabo and

1703
01:58:44,240 --> 01:58:48,320
Speaker 3: amazing library leaders at LA Public Libraries plus to have

1704
01:58:49,320 --> 01:58:53,800
Speaker 3: they are a rock star globally. I have people all

1705
01:58:53,800 --> 01:58:56,560
Speaker 3: over the world that look at how New York Public

1706
01:58:56,840 --> 01:59:00,200
Speaker 3: or LA Public or Toronto Public, or I'll be up

1707
01:59:00,240 --> 01:59:03,880
Speaker 3: in Seattle with our partners at King County. These are

1708
01:59:04,520 --> 01:59:09,839
Speaker 3: libraries are innovators. Libraries have been evangelizing books and creating

1709
01:59:09,880 --> 01:59:14,400
Speaker 3: the market for reading and pushing people into lifelong reading

1710
01:59:15,200 --> 01:59:19,760
Speaker 3: since there was a library in Alexandria three thousand years ago.

1711
01:59:20,400 --> 01:59:24,400
Speaker 3: We know that this is a growth market and I'm

1712
01:59:24,400 --> 01:59:26,760
Speaker 3: proud to say that when I'm in New York or

1713
01:59:26,800 --> 01:59:31,680
Speaker 3: London talking to the Big five or whoever. Overdrive as

1714
01:59:31,720 --> 01:59:35,080
Speaker 3: far as a source of revenue for the trade publishers

1715
01:59:35,840 --> 01:59:39,800
Speaker 3: is always in the top five. Who's number one, who

1716
01:59:39,840 --> 01:59:43,960
Speaker 3: generates revenue for them? It's Amazon, Amazon's number one worldwide

1717
01:59:43,960 --> 01:59:48,360
Speaker 3: pretty much number two and three. Depending on what segment,

1718
01:59:48,440 --> 01:59:52,040
Speaker 3: what audience, what geo, it might fluctuate between an Apple

1719
01:59:52,080 --> 01:59:56,960
Speaker 3: of Barnes and Noble or audiobooks, maybe Spotify and you know,

1720
01:59:57,120 --> 02:00:01,000
Speaker 3: Nordic Countries is your rock star. Now couple of courses

1721
02:00:01,040 --> 02:00:03,640
Speaker 3: in the mix and b you know the others. But

1722
02:00:03,960 --> 02:00:09,600
Speaker 3: overdrive as unit and revenue sales to the publishers. In

1723
02:00:09,640 --> 02:00:13,560
Speaker 3: some cases we may be number three. We are delivering

1724
02:00:13,880 --> 02:00:19,000
Speaker 3: hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the creed or community,

1725
02:00:19,800 --> 02:00:23,680
Speaker 3: and the publishers and the authors are getting, on average,

1726
02:00:25,080 --> 02:00:30,400
Speaker 3: possibly even more for the privilege of someone benefiting from

1727
02:00:30,400 --> 02:00:32,800
Speaker 3: a book from that school or library than they're getting

1728
02:00:32,800 --> 02:00:36,080
Speaker 3: from buying it at retail. And let's face it, when

1729
02:00:36,080 --> 02:00:39,600
Speaker 3: you we have no secondary market. When they sell to

1730
02:00:39,640 --> 02:00:44,720
Speaker 3: the library, they're not competing against used book sales or

1731
02:00:45,440 --> 02:00:49,720
Speaker 3: eBay or you know other other forms where you know,

1732
02:00:50,520 --> 02:00:53,120
Speaker 3: libraries are not benefiting and some of them are arguing

1733
02:00:53,200 --> 02:00:56,320
Speaker 3: they should from the first sale doctrine. You know, you

1734
02:00:56,520 --> 02:00:58,280
Speaker 3: bob or I Bob I buy a book and I

1735
02:00:58,280 --> 02:01:00,080
Speaker 3: want to gift it to my daughter, I want to

1736
02:01:00,120 --> 02:01:01,040
Speaker 3: give it to the library.

1737
02:01:01,040 --> 02:01:01,800
Speaker 2: I'm free to do that.

1738
02:01:02,720 --> 02:01:06,880
Speaker 3: Library school buys a digital edition for lending under the

1739
02:01:06,920 --> 02:01:10,200
Speaker 3: permissions that are granted to me as their distributor and

1740
02:01:10,280 --> 02:01:14,240
Speaker 3: vendor and partner. The library can't say, you know, this

1741
02:01:14,360 --> 02:01:16,480
Speaker 3: book is not so popular, we now want to give

1742
02:01:16,480 --> 02:01:16,880
Speaker 3: it away.

1743
02:01:17,000 --> 02:01:18,440
Speaker 2: I mean I can't. They can't.

1744
02:01:19,560 --> 02:01:22,480
Speaker 3: So the value proposition to the author and the publisher

1745
02:01:22,560 --> 02:01:25,440
Speaker 3: is extraordinary. By the way, when the library spends a

1746
02:01:25,440 --> 02:01:29,880
Speaker 3: million dollars and the publisher gets us, the publisher has

1747
02:01:29,960 --> 02:01:32,920
Speaker 3: so much more net earnings off the sale of the

1748
02:01:32,960 --> 02:01:36,920
Speaker 3: digital book through me. They never get. They don't have

1749
02:01:37,000 --> 02:01:39,640
Speaker 3: to put a reserve on their balance sheet for returns.

1750
02:01:40,280 --> 02:01:44,400
Speaker 3: They don't have to worry about print costs, print overruns, returns,

1751
02:01:44,520 --> 02:01:48,200
Speaker 3: shipping costs, warehouse They don't have.

1752
02:01:48,240 --> 02:01:48,720
Speaker 2: Any of that.

1753
02:01:48,920 --> 02:01:51,480
Speaker 3: Yet they want to negotiate with me and get the

1754
02:01:51,560 --> 02:01:55,400
Speaker 3: benefit and beat me up on gross margin and clawback

1755
02:01:55,520 --> 02:01:57,440
Speaker 3: and put it make it harder for me to sell.

1756
02:01:57,960 --> 02:02:01,160
Speaker 3: They should be paying me to promote their books in

1757
02:02:01,200 --> 02:02:03,680
Speaker 3: the library. Because of the value of Libby and the

1758
02:02:03,760 --> 02:02:07,560
Speaker 3: discovery and soar in the classroom, we are growing the

1759
02:02:07,640 --> 02:02:12,280
Speaker 3: market for their products. And I'll keep evangelizing because schools

1760
02:02:12,280 --> 02:02:15,320
Speaker 3: and libraries are the best thing for the future of

1761
02:02:15,320 --> 02:02:17,760
Speaker 3: books and reading. And if they don't wake up and

1762
02:02:17,840 --> 02:02:21,160
Speaker 3: get that memo, shame on them. Someone's going to take

1763
02:02:21,200 --> 02:02:23,440
Speaker 3: their business. And it's happening every day.

1764
02:02:23,920 --> 02:02:29,240
Speaker 1: Okay, two quick questions. One, if la spend on Libby

1765
02:02:29,360 --> 02:02:31,480
Speaker 1: is a million, what's their spend on Canopy.

1766
02:02:33,520 --> 02:02:37,640
Speaker 3: It's a smaller number. And by the way I generalize,

1767
02:02:37,680 --> 02:02:40,480
Speaker 3: those are those exact numbers. I use that as a

1768
02:02:40,640 --> 02:02:44,760
Speaker 3: general number. So they probably spend six figures a year

1769
02:02:44,800 --> 02:02:50,760
Speaker 3: with Canopy. And they may be adding and adjusting because

1770
02:02:51,000 --> 02:02:56,720
Speaker 3: as we keep adding collections or providing different models, because

1771
02:02:56,760 --> 02:03:00,000
Speaker 3: we're also learning film and video or use for different perpose.

1772
02:03:01,280 --> 02:03:06,560
Speaker 3: So if they are using it for complementary to event

1773
02:03:06,680 --> 02:03:10,360
Speaker 3: or programming, they may need to be very concerned about

1774
02:03:10,360 --> 02:03:15,280
Speaker 3: public performance rights. So Canopy in the public library is

1775
02:03:15,440 --> 02:03:18,720
Speaker 3: not quite at the level of revenue that we've what

1776
02:03:18,880 --> 02:03:21,040
Speaker 3: you enjoyed from the book business. Because I've been giving

1777
02:03:21,680 --> 02:03:24,200
Speaker 3: many of the biggest public libraries in North America have

1778
02:03:24,240 --> 02:03:27,240
Speaker 3: been on Overdrive platform and now with Libby for twenty

1779
02:03:27,240 --> 02:03:30,680
Speaker 3: plus years. So we started with Cleveland Public twenty three

1780
02:03:30,760 --> 02:03:34,240
Speaker 3: years ago, so LA Public Library we've probably launched around

1781
02:03:34,440 --> 02:03:37,920
Speaker 3: four h five so twenty years we've only been in

1782
02:03:37,960 --> 02:03:41,160
Speaker 3: the supplying of the Canopy video business. Now, you know,

1783
02:03:41,320 --> 02:03:45,400
Speaker 3: just under five years. And since we acquired Canopy, the

1784
02:03:45,480 --> 02:03:48,440
Speaker 3: models and the collection wasn't as well aligned for the

1785
02:03:48,440 --> 02:03:53,200
Speaker 3: public library space, and we've made some real milestones. This

1786
02:03:54,040 --> 02:03:59,480
Speaker 3: simplifying the tickets was a major way of streamlining because before,

1787
02:03:59,560 --> 02:04:03,280
Speaker 3: when people borrowed movie from Canopy for the tickets, the

1788
02:04:03,360 --> 02:04:06,480
Speaker 3: librarian didn't know how much it was costing them. But

1789
02:04:06,640 --> 02:04:12,160
Speaker 3: now when they see films in the Canopy catalogs and

1790
02:04:12,200 --> 02:04:15,040
Speaker 3: they see that this is two tickets, this is one ticket,

1791
02:04:15,080 --> 02:04:18,160
Speaker 3: this is no ticket. If they want to highlight for

1792
02:04:18,280 --> 02:04:23,240
Speaker 3: a subber reading program a film that is low ticket use,

1793
02:04:23,600 --> 02:04:25,880
Speaker 3: they know that it's going to be lower costs for

1794
02:04:25,960 --> 02:04:31,600
Speaker 3: them because they're paying for the platform and the collection,

1795
02:04:32,560 --> 02:04:37,800
Speaker 3: and users can get more views. And every end user

1796
02:04:37,880 --> 02:04:40,200
Speaker 3: now has a simpler I give you, I give you

1797
02:04:40,320 --> 02:04:42,760
Speaker 3: thirty tickets. You know where you are. Every time you

1798
02:04:42,840 --> 02:04:46,160
Speaker 3: launch Canopy, it shows you how many you have available.

1799
02:04:46,160 --> 02:04:48,600
Speaker 3: In the upper right hand corner, you're you're using down

1800
02:04:48,640 --> 02:04:51,320
Speaker 3: your tickets for the month and then it resets.

1801
02:04:51,800 --> 02:04:56,839
Speaker 1: Okay, finally, what turns you on and how did this start?

1802
02:04:58,040 --> 02:05:03,760
Speaker 1: Is it about books or is it about a digital enterprise?

1803
02:05:04,160 --> 02:05:07,200
Speaker 1: I mean retrospect. Jeff Bezos didn't care about books. He's

1804
02:05:07,280 --> 02:05:09,720
Speaker 1: kind of honest about this. Saw a niche filled it.

1805
02:05:10,200 --> 02:05:13,960
Speaker 1: So is this about reading or is this about tapping

1806
02:05:14,040 --> 02:05:15,200
Speaker 1: an untapped market?

1807
02:05:16,640 --> 02:05:20,120
Speaker 3: Well, if you would have asked me those questions at

1808
02:05:20,600 --> 02:05:24,240
Speaker 3: once every decade over the past forty years, I would

1809
02:05:24,240 --> 02:05:27,120
Speaker 3: have had a different answer. But I can tell you

1810
02:05:27,240 --> 02:05:31,280
Speaker 3: over the last decade what has got me to jump

1811
02:05:31,280 --> 02:05:37,200
Speaker 3: out of bed every morning and be so eager to

1812
02:05:37,440 --> 02:05:42,200
Speaker 3: lean forward into every opportunity that technology and access to

1813
02:05:42,320 --> 02:05:45,240
Speaker 3: content and even with some of the new influences of

1814
02:05:45,360 --> 02:05:50,200
Speaker 3: AI tools, which is another podcast at a future date.

1815
02:05:51,440 --> 02:05:55,480
Speaker 3: I believe that in the next five to ten years,

1816
02:05:56,120 --> 02:06:00,200
Speaker 3: as a confluence of the technology and our positioning with

1817
02:06:00,320 --> 02:06:06,280
Speaker 3: these it's the secret weapon overdrive has is a network

1818
02:06:06,440 --> 02:06:14,920
Speaker 3: of dedicated community servants informational professional known as librarians, and

1819
02:06:14,960 --> 02:06:18,720
Speaker 3: they have been dedicated for a world enlightened by reading.

1820
02:06:19,080 --> 02:06:22,640
Speaker 3: When someone walks into that public library anywhere in the country,

1821
02:06:23,040 --> 02:06:25,480
Speaker 3: they don't look at how your dress or what your

1822
02:06:25,560 --> 02:06:28,720
Speaker 3: zip code is they are there to welcome you and

1823
02:06:28,840 --> 02:06:32,240
Speaker 3: provide you whatever it is which will help you in

1824
02:06:32,280 --> 02:06:36,040
Speaker 3: your time of crisis, in your time of celebration, at

1825
02:06:36,120 --> 02:06:39,600
Speaker 3: every point of the journey. And what excites me is

1826
02:06:40,000 --> 02:06:45,040
Speaker 3: I honestly believe we are going to change the literacy

1827
02:06:45,080 --> 02:06:51,080
Speaker 3: pandemic in this nation. Childhood illiteracy is just a fact

1828
02:06:51,080 --> 02:06:55,520
Speaker 3: of life. And you know, unfortunately where you are, you

1829
02:06:55,560 --> 02:06:58,560
Speaker 3: know this is where zip code matters. If you are

1830
02:06:58,920 --> 02:07:02,200
Speaker 3: in a in a neighborhood where you have access to

1831
02:07:02,560 --> 02:07:06,360
Speaker 3: less funded public libraries or less funded public schools and

1832
02:07:06,400 --> 02:07:10,600
Speaker 3: they don't have access to all the material and resources

1833
02:07:10,640 --> 02:07:15,160
Speaker 3: and interventions, it's likely that your students will not have

1834
02:07:15,280 --> 02:07:19,080
Speaker 3: the same progression how they learn to speak and read

1835
02:07:19,160 --> 02:07:22,160
Speaker 3: books and progress in their academic journey. This is why

1836
02:07:22,240 --> 02:07:25,400
Speaker 3: so many states are now leaning forward in the science

1837
02:07:25,440 --> 02:07:29,120
Speaker 3: of reading, or there's been a decade mandate to read

1838
02:07:29,200 --> 02:07:32,400
Speaker 3: by three. We know that if a student isn't by

1839
02:07:32,440 --> 02:07:35,480
Speaker 3: the third grade reading at the appropriate grade level, you

1840
02:07:35,520 --> 02:07:38,040
Speaker 3: could almost chart out the rest of his life on

1841
02:07:38,160 --> 02:07:42,000
Speaker 3: his earnings, his academic and his even his health and wellness.

1842
02:07:42,600 --> 02:07:46,720
Speaker 3: That's all impacted by the foundation of reading and literacy.

1843
02:07:47,360 --> 02:07:50,440
Speaker 3: Now in the urban markets, that we are dedicated to

1844
02:07:50,480 --> 02:07:54,920
Speaker 3: support every public library in America. Yes, we're so blessed

1845
02:07:54,960 --> 02:07:57,880
Speaker 3: that if you are a Libby fan commuting and you

1846
02:07:58,000 --> 02:08:02,400
Speaker 3: have multiple tableists and streaming platforms, we are better than

1847
02:08:02,440 --> 02:08:05,200
Speaker 3: slice bread. And I love the love letters and the

1848
02:08:05,560 --> 02:08:09,080
Speaker 3: you know, we have fan bases worldwide, but that doesn't

1849
02:08:09,120 --> 02:08:12,960
Speaker 3: motivate me. I want to improve the life of those

1850
02:08:14,000 --> 02:08:17,880
Speaker 3: who need a book to take care of their parent,

1851
02:08:18,640 --> 02:08:22,240
Speaker 3: or to make a reversal of their decline of their health,

1852
02:08:22,760 --> 02:08:25,200
Speaker 3: or to help them get that job so they can

1853
02:08:25,240 --> 02:08:34,760
Speaker 3: apply for that manufacturing opportunity, workforce development, adult literacy, health literacy.

1854
02:08:35,320 --> 02:08:38,360
Speaker 3: We are going to I go to every week, you know,

1855
02:08:38,440 --> 02:08:41,520
Speaker 3: the first of the year, I'm at CES, marching around.

1856
02:08:42,040 --> 02:08:44,200
Speaker 3: I spend about a third of my time at the

1857
02:08:44,360 --> 02:08:49,160
Speaker 3: Senior Tech sponsored by AARP. Because we're all aging, We're

1858
02:08:49,200 --> 02:08:53,480
Speaker 3: all going to need assiste of technology everything. Yes, I

1859
02:08:53,560 --> 02:08:55,560
Speaker 3: could make the font larger, and I need to make

1860
02:08:55,600 --> 02:08:58,000
Speaker 3: the audiobook louder, and I want to speed it up

1861
02:08:58,080 --> 02:09:03,240
Speaker 3: or slow it down. But the invention of you know,

1862
02:09:03,640 --> 02:09:06,880
Speaker 3: I'm going to be everything you read and hear is

1863
02:09:06,920 --> 02:09:10,120
Speaker 3: going to be instantly available in every language. We are

1864
02:09:10,160 --> 02:09:13,160
Speaker 3: going to be able to adapt the book and the

1865
02:09:13,200 --> 02:09:17,480
Speaker 3: modality of presenting the content and the concept to every

1866
02:09:17,600 --> 02:09:21,400
Speaker 3: reader in untold ways that are going to make a difference.

1867
02:09:21,440 --> 02:09:24,600
Speaker 3: So this is this is what excites me. We are

1868
02:09:24,680 --> 02:09:28,000
Speaker 3: going to make We are going to turn around a

1869
02:09:28,120 --> 02:09:31,360
Speaker 3: nation that has been over decades becoming.

1870
02:09:31,040 --> 02:09:33,440
Speaker 2: Less literate, less skilled.

1871
02:09:34,160 --> 02:09:36,320
Speaker 3: You know, in the UK, they just died a twenty

1872
02:09:36,600 --> 02:09:41,080
Speaker 3: study that in the UK classroom students are reading four

1873
02:09:41,200 --> 02:09:44,920
Speaker 3: percent below the grade level over two years ago, and

1874
02:09:44,960 --> 02:09:47,040
Speaker 3: the kids that are getting to the middle schools are

1875
02:09:47,080 --> 02:09:50,280
Speaker 3: reading at the lower grade levels. And it's not just there,

1876
02:09:50,400 --> 02:09:53,680
Speaker 3: this is happening worldwide. We are going to make such

1877
02:09:53,720 --> 02:10:00,400
Speaker 3: a dent and literacy English Language Cultural Education workforce element.

1878
02:10:00,880 --> 02:10:03,760
Speaker 3: I volunteer in our local major healthcare system here at

1879
02:10:03,840 --> 02:10:07,600
Speaker 3: University Hospital, and I'm all about health literacy. Yes, we

1880
02:10:07,680 --> 02:10:09,840
Speaker 3: have the best doctors and the best apps, and the

1881
02:10:09,880 --> 02:10:13,040
Speaker 3: best science and the best clinical data. But at the

1882
02:10:13,120 --> 02:10:16,280
Speaker 3: end of the day, it's you, the patient who has

1883
02:10:16,320 --> 02:10:18,480
Speaker 3: to make the change. If I don't stop eating this

1884
02:10:18,600 --> 02:10:20,440
Speaker 3: and do that, if I don't get off my butt

1885
02:10:20,480 --> 02:10:23,560
Speaker 3: and do this, I am going to suffer that outcome.

1886
02:10:24,000 --> 02:10:25,360
Speaker 2: I got a bad lab result.

1887
02:10:25,920 --> 02:10:28,080
Speaker 3: But when I come in and they tell me something

1888
02:10:28,080 --> 02:10:30,080
Speaker 3: and I don't understand, and they give me a file

1889
02:10:30,160 --> 02:10:32,760
Speaker 3: folder of papers and I don't know what placeemic is

1890
02:10:32,840 --> 02:10:35,920
Speaker 3: and I can't read it. I can't even understand how

1891
02:10:35,920 --> 02:10:39,120
Speaker 3: to take the pills because it's three x five x,

1892
02:10:39,160 --> 02:10:43,960
Speaker 3: and I have a numeracy issue. Literacy enlightening the world

1893
02:10:44,040 --> 02:10:45,800
Speaker 3: through books and access to information.

1894
02:10:45,920 --> 02:10:47,920
Speaker 2: That's what gets me out of bed. And we have

1895
02:10:48,000 --> 02:10:48,800
Speaker 2: a lot of work to do.

1896
02:10:49,920 --> 02:10:53,200
Speaker 1: Well, Steve, you've really gone through it lists. I'm glad

1897
02:10:53,200 --> 02:10:55,440
Speaker 1: to have you on the podcast. I'm a huge fan

1898
02:10:55,520 --> 02:10:59,920
Speaker 1: ofly B use it literally every day for those people

1899
02:11:00,080 --> 02:11:03,320
Speaker 1: you know, listen, I get physical books all the time.

1900
02:11:03,360 --> 02:11:05,800
Speaker 1: I happened to read it. Be reading a physical book

1901
02:11:05,920 --> 02:11:09,040
Speaker 1: right now. Had to go for a doctor's appointment yesterday.

1902
02:11:09,080 --> 02:11:12,000
Speaker 1: I'm celebt to go. Well, that's a big book and

1903
02:11:12,040 --> 02:11:14,000
Speaker 1: I got to carry it around, whereas I can read

1904
02:11:14,040 --> 02:11:18,360
Speaker 1: digital books on my phone. Secondly, I'm always reading a

1905
02:11:18,400 --> 02:11:20,920
Speaker 1: physical book and I find a word I don't understand,

1906
02:11:21,000 --> 02:11:23,880
Speaker 1: I start to touch. Because I'm used to digital books,

1907
02:11:24,240 --> 02:11:27,440
Speaker 1: I can give the definition. Well, you've certainly amplified what's

1908
02:11:27,520 --> 02:11:32,240
Speaker 1: going on in the ebook digital revolution libraries, and I

1909
02:11:32,280 --> 02:11:34,600
Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for taking this time

1910
02:11:34,640 --> 02:11:35,480
Speaker 1: with my audience.

1911
02:11:36,240 --> 02:11:40,000
Speaker 3: Thank you, Bob, and I really appreciate your perspective from

1912
02:11:40,000 --> 02:11:44,360
Speaker 3: the industry standpoint, because usually I'm talking about just the

1913
02:11:44,360 --> 02:11:47,560
Speaker 3: frustrations of the end user. And I really like talking

1914
02:11:47,560 --> 02:11:54,800
Speaker 3: about the industry because there's so many commonalities of negotiating

1915
02:11:55,000 --> 02:11:58,280
Speaker 3: with the artists and the music publishers and the labels

1916
02:11:58,800 --> 02:12:01,240
Speaker 3: that we are deal with on the on the book

1917
02:12:01,280 --> 02:12:03,440
Speaker 3: and the on the film side. I stayed out of

1918
02:12:03,560 --> 02:12:07,800
Speaker 3: music because it was too hard. That's how we met our.

1919
02:12:08,880 --> 02:12:09,080
Speaker 2: Well.

1920
02:12:09,120 --> 02:12:13,040
Speaker 1: On that note, till next time, Thanks again, Steve. Till

1921
02:12:13,200 --> 02:12:15,520
Speaker 1: next time. This is Bob left six