My books in libraries, 2021 edition
These are libraries in the United States, Canada, the Philippines, and Australia that have my books.
This is a bit of a zoom into North America, which has most of the libraries listed because their catalogs are searchable through WorldCat and Overdrive.
I’ve had access to this info for a while, and it’s always reminded me that there are people out there who care, and pay attention. Most of the books acquired by these libraries are my self-published titles. There are a few university libraries that have some of my Philippine trad pub editions, but they represent just 6 libraries that I’ve been able to find.
My publishing strategy as of a few years ago is to “go wide” as much as possible. I publish non-exclusively everywhere which means my books are likely to be available for libraries to purchase. I’ve set my library editions to be the same as my retail price (in some cases, cheaper), although there’s advice to do it another way. The lower pricing is…just a thing I did that I didn’t think too much about, when I set it up. Anyway, now we have this. Acquisitions that I’ve earned from, purchases of an entire series, sometimes my entire backlist. Even in cities and counties where I don’t know anyone. Because as a Filipino with lots of family in the US that’s something you think would be a factor, but eventually even I have to concede that I don’t have this many friends and family in these cities. Something else is at work here.
On a good day, I hope that the “something else” is good intentions in action—someone, many someones, in all these cities and counties, they’re the type who would actually acquire a self-published romance book by a Filipino author. Who are actively looking to diversify their collections, and somehow not just found my books but also allocated a portion of their budget to buy the books. I don’t have a publicist, I don’t take out ads, I’m unfamiliar with the library system and wouldn’t have known how to get my books noticed. (I still don’t, and it’s because we don’t have that kind of system here.)
Sometimes when I find my book in a library catalog, I see it’s been checked out. On a good day I think that someone, several someones, chose to pick up a book by a Filipino author and that’s so cool? I’ve tried browsing these romance collections, and there are endless choices. I wonder what made them choose to borrow one of my books, and I can only guess, but I hope it’s because I made a bunch of right decisions.
