Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Recommending a Digital Book to your Library

With the influx of "digital only" and "digital first" books on the market, how does a library stay current? I've been approached recently by several YA librarians who have asked about getting Any Way You Slice It into their kids' hands, so I've done a bit of research.

Most digital books are going to be available through Overdrive. Overdrive is a giant online clearinghouse of books, in their digital format. The thing is...your library STILL has to purchase the digital title from Overdrive in order to house it on their own virtual shelves. Just as you would recommend they purchase a physical copy of your favorite title, you can request they purchase a digital title.

Consider doing this for all your favorite digital books at your local library.

Here's how it works:

1. Go to Overdrive and sign in: https://www.overdrive.com/
2. Search for your own library/library consortium and save it as a favorite library, then click on the library name to search what's available in their list of digital titles.

3. You will need your library card, so it must be library to which you have a card!
4. Put Any Way You Slice It (or your favorite digital title--you can do this as many times as you want) into the search engine. If it doesn't come up in your library's collection, hit the button that says "search for more titles" and the search engine will go to Overdrive and pull up the cover.
5. Recommend it as a book your library or consortium should consider making available to their digital readers. 


Personally, I'd love to get my book into the hands of teen and tween readers, and having it available through libraries is a good way to start! But if you're not inclined to recommend my book, consider any of the other Bloomsbury Spark titles listed here: http://bloomsbury.com/us/bloomsbury-spark/



2 comments:

Author R. Mac Wheeler said...

hmmm...Overdrive looks pretty cool. I tried to check out a book...my library card may be obsolete...but as a reader this looks interesting...not just as a writer. Cool. I need to get my books in the Tampa library.

Renee Conoulty said...

I have requested my library to purchase books for Overdrive and I've had a couple come through. The request process is pretty easy and if you tick the box they will put the book on hold for you as soon as it's in.