Should I Feel Guilty For Checking Out A Book Instead Of Buying It?

If you check out a book from the library, are you hurting an author’s bottom line? Should you feel guilty if you’re a dedicated library-goer rather than a book purchaser?

Margery Bayne, a self-published author and librarian in Baltimore, has heard questions like these quite a few times through the years and thinks the answer is largely “no.”

“Sure, if you love a book you borrowed from the library and think you’re one day going to read it again, buy a copy!” she said. “But if you are low on funds, there are other ways to support an author besides purchasing the book.”

If you are a reader questioning the ethics of your personal checkout practices, it may help to know a little bit about how libraries work, she added.

Libraries keep track of how many times a book is checked out, Bayne told HuffPost: If a book is checked out a lot, it leads to more sales because the library considers those stats (a) when determining whether to buy replacement copies of a title when its copies get worn out or damaged, (b) if they need to buy more copies to fill community interest and demand, and © how many copies of the author’s next book they will buy, she explained.

Jane Friedman, a publishing industry reporter and author of “Publishing 101: A First-Time Author’s Guide,” agrees with Bayne: Your library checkout guilt is probably unwarranted.

“Libraries pay publishers for books, and publishers pay authors royalties on library sales just like bookstore sales,” she told HuffPost.

For book publishers and authors, library sales are simply another distribution channel, just like Amazon, your local bookstore or schools.

“Moreover, for digital books (e-books and audiobooks), libraries pay higher pricing than consumers and publishers put