FAQ on the agreement to offer book reprints for sale on Amazon.com
July 21, 2009
Q. What is provided for in the agreement with BookSurge, part of the Amazon group of companies?
The University of Michigan will make thousands of books -- some rare and one-of-a-kind -- available on Amazon.com as reprints on demand. BookSurge will use the digital copies of the original works from the U-M Library collection to create a soft-cover reprint and mail it to customers.
Q. How long does the agreement run?
The initial agreement is for two years.
Q. Is this an exclusive agreement?
No. The agreement does not limit the U-M to offering reprints only on Amazon. In the coming year, the university will be extending the program and working with other potential printing and distribution partners.
Q. How will this work?
The public will be able to search for a title through the U-M Library or on Amazon.com. On the U-M Library Web site, for instance, there will be a "buy this book" link added that will allow users to order a reprint. Anyone with a link to the Internet and a credit card will be able to order reprints.
Q. When will these additional titles be available for purchase?
We expect to have the books available for reprint later this summer. We'll continue to add titles as books are digitized for the next several years.
Q. Where are the original books?
All of the titles offered for reprint are books or other publications that exist in the U-M Library collections. Some are very rare. Some are deteriorating badly and cannot safely be handled. All are being carefully preserved.
Q. Who will buy these reprints?
We think there will be wide interest in public access to these books. History enthusiasts, scholars, students, teachers and other libraries are among those we believe will make use of this new, low-cost reprint service.
Q. What will the reprints cost?
We estimate that costs will range from as little as $10 to about $45 for larger and longer books. Books will be mailed directly to customers.
Q. Who sets the price?
The U-M determines the list price of each book, which will be based on the length and size of the book. Amazon may discount that price, but may not charge more than the list price.
Q. Will the U-M make money on the reprints?
Yes, but that is not the primary goal. We want to make these books more available to the public and to scholars and this agreement accomplishes that. The books will be priced to cover the costs of production and a small profit. The university will use its proceeds to cover the cost of production and some infrastructure costs related to the digitization effort.
Q. Why would Google agree to sales on Amazon?
The university has an agreement with Google to do what it does best: Create digital copies of these books. Now the university has an agreement with a unit of Amazon to do what it does best: Sell books and other items very efficiently on the Internet. We think both are great partnerships and the companies agree. In addition, the university will eventually share some of its proceeds with Google on the sale of books that were digitized by Google.
Q. What types of books will be available?
Most of the titles now available are late 19th century works. There are books in more than 200 languages from Acoli to Zulu, although most are in English, French and German. That will continue to grow and change as the digitization effort continues. Among the interesting titles now available include many that have already been purchased as reprints through a much smaller-scale existing program. Those titles include:
* "Notes on Nursing: What it is and what it is not," written in 1898 by Florence Nightingale.
* "The Art of Perfumery," published in 1857.
* "Trigonometry with the Theory and Use of Logarithms," written in 1914.
* "K.G.C. An authentic exposition of the origin, objects and secret work of the organization known as Knights of the Golden Circle," from 1862.
Q. Won't this agreement undercut sales at stores that specialize in used or rare books?
We believe it will have just the opposite effect. Making reprints so readily available could spark interest in owning original copies of some of the titles. In some cases, that could motivate customers to seek out the originals through the rich network of booksellers who deal in used and rare books.
Q. Who else might benefit from this agreement?
Smaller libraries. One way the new program could have a positive trickle-down effect is that smaller libraries would be able to buy low-cost reprints of books that are no longer in print and put them back into circulation. Because the books being offered for reprint are all in the public domain, buyers are not limited in their use by copyright restrictions.
