Foreword David Vinjamuri What the Illinois librarians who created the Soon to be Famous Illinois Author Project have done is nothing short of remarkable. They’ve taken the first step toward changing the balance of power between libraries and publishers and reinventing the library for the next generation. Let me explain. I became involved with libraries by accident. In the early fall of 2012, I was approached by two women who had started a small publishing house devoted to nontraditional tween titles. They’d just been fortunate enough to get one of their books featured on a national morning television show. Then they had a brilliant idea to promote the book. They decided to donate one electronic copy of the book to every public library in America. And then they hit a wall. The dominant provider of eBooks to libraries told this small publisher that it was too small to deal with—in spite of the national exposure the authors’ book had just received. And also in spite of the fact that they were trying to give away the book for free, not sell it. In frustration, these women approached me. I spent over 15 years as a mar- keter, with stints at Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, and other large companies, before I started teaching at New York University and contributing to Forbes. I had just written an article about self-publishing and how it was changing the landscape of the publishing industry. These two women had read that article and contacted me because they thought something was going on with libraries that I might want to write about. I was interested in their story and began to investigate. Just at that time, Maureen Sullivan—then president of the American Library Association— wrote an open letter to publishers, detailing the frustrations that libraries were experiencing with eBooks. I learned from Maureen that many eBooks that were cheaply available to ordinary citizens could not be had from publishers any price. For others, the price was dear: $84 or more for a book that a ­at Kindle reader could purchase for $9.99 or less. My intent was to write a short article commenting on these practices from a marketer’s point of view. Instead, fascinated by what I learned, I wrote two pieces for Forbes totaling over 10,000 words. Nearly 300,000 people read those articles online.
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