#BorrowBox

[whirling-ghost]

and as if I haven't complained enough today, both borrowbox and libby have stopped working on my phone

[francescaswords]

Pre-Orders for Rotting Trees are open, with a bonus Bezzina's short story for pre-orders!

Hello! Happy Halloween/five year anniversary of the return of My Chemical Romance to all who celebrate. I’m quite excited to announce that Rotting Trees will release as an ebook and a paperback on 31st January 2025 and you can pre-order it now from all major retailers at a very nice little discount. It will be available from your local bookshops too – just ask them to order it in for collection!…

[richardarmitagefanpage]

Q&A with Richard on Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt, by Lucinda Riley.

[adreamthatsworthkeeping]

BorrowBox: This book you borrowed six weeks ago expires in less than 24 hours. Do you want to, I dunno, maybe start it? Just a suggestion.

Me: *starts playing the 10 hour audiobook at 1pm with hope in my heart to defy linear time*

[mmolia]

in the UK authors get royalties from EPUBS being checked out from Libby and Borrowbox and the rest. This is YOUR tax money going to authors. Get a library card and support your local library.

"Don't use Libby because it costs libraries too much, pirate instead" is such a weird, anti-patron, anti-author take that somehow manages to also be anti-library, in my professional librarian-ass opinion.

It's well documented that pirating books negatively affects authors directly* in a way that pirating movies or TV shows doesn't affect actors or writers, so I will likely always be anti-book piracy unless there's absolutely, positively no other option (i.e. the book simply doesn't exist outside of online archives at all, or in a particular language).

Also, yeah, Libby and Hoopla licenses are really expensive, but libraries buy them SO THAT PATRONS CAN USE THEM. If you're gonna be pissed at anybody about this shitty state of affairs, be pissed at publishing companies and continue to use Libby or Hoopla at your library so we can continue to justify having it to our funding bodies.

One of the best ways to support your library having services you like is to USE THOSE SERVICES. Yes, even if they are expensive.

*Yes, this is a blog post, but it's a blog post filled with links to news articles. If you can click one link, you can click another.

[joelfe]

[bibliollama]

Stacking The Shelves #9

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Reading Reality all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! My Amazon first read selection was: Susannah Nix – The Love Code I picked up one Kindle…

[ezekiel13]

Hey guys

Are you in the UK?

Want to use the library but don’t want to go there/can’t get there/like reading or listening on your phones?

BorrowBox. It’s an official library app and all you need is the details of your library card! Don’t have a library card? They’re free. So is the app.

It’s just the ebooks, e audiobooks and epress that your local libraries have! And because it’s official library. It’s free

They'll look up and shout, "Get all the books and movies and music you could want streaming with our monthly service"

And I'll whisper back: library

[soracities]

Hi, do you or any of your followers have any recs for audiobooks? Preferably that are free, I just would like to listen to something while knitting but not sure how to start exploring since I don't know who are good narrators or things like that. Thanks so much!!

i don't listen to audiobooks unfortunately but any audiobook devotees please please send in your recs for anon, thank you 💗

[jakeperalta]

audiobook I've had on hold for like six months became available the day before I go on holiday and therefore won't have a chance to listen during the loan period

[francescaswords]

Thank you to everyone who's purchased Rotting Trees so far. If you can't purchase a copy, you can get it absolutely free from your local library as an ebook or paperback. If it doesn't show in the library's catalogue search or your e-book app, you might have to ask at the desk and/or fill in a form - it'll depend on the library system.

[comic-tragedies-tragic-comedies]

Libby/OverDrive is available worldwide! Also, Libby and BorrowBox apps can both be used without WiFi or data, as long as your eBook or audiobook has already been downloaded. So you can borrow and download it, then turn off data to read or listen. 

Depending on your library you may also be able to borrow magazines from Libby, and/or newspapers from BorrowBox.

You can change the font, size of the text, and background colour of eBooks, and the speed of narration for audiobooks, in the accessibility settings for Libby, BorrowBox, and uLibrary. (If your library has comics and graphic novels available on Libby, you can zoom in to read different panels).

Because of being able to add multiple cards to Libby, you can also use this to have a family share one device, with each card having a different person’s loans. And you can set up your preferences to only show children’s titles. Or your library may have Libby set up with a Kids’ collection, which only shows their children's titles, without you needing to change anything. And if you search for something, it only brings up children's titles as results, if you’re worried about age restrictions. 

Different languages are available too:

PressReader has newspapers and magazines from different countries, in over 60 languages. Some newspapers have a listen button, where your device will read it aloud to you. 

Libby automatically works in the language your device is set in! 

Your library may have books in other languages available on Libby or BorrowBox. 

libby app guide

aka how to support libraries and get books and audiobooks for free without pirating them.

disclaimer: this is so easy. it is also really fun.

one: download the libby app. you'll open it and it'll ask you to add a library.

two: get a library card. don't have one? good news, it's really easy and i am saying this as the laziest person on earth. it varies what you need to have to get a card library to library but almost all libraries will let you get one online. i have a card for my home town and for the town i moved to. sometimes you only need an email address, sometimes you need an area code. to get mine it took me about 5 minutes of lying on the couch aimlessly tapping on my phone. follow your heart. you can get cards for places you don't currently live. i will leave the ethics of that up to you but it's probably better than pirating and either way you're creating traffic for libraries which is what they need to exist.

three: add your card. you can add multiple cards for multiple libraries. you need the number. i have never had libby fail to recognize a valid account.

four: search for your book! some will be ready to borrow right away. others have an estimated delivery time. libby will always pick the one that's the fastest from the options available at all the libraries you have cards at. you can borrow audiobooks and ebooks. libby will send you a notification when you're book is ready to borrow. in my experience it's a lot faster than the estimate. if you aren't ready to read it, you can ask to be skipped over in line so you keep your place at the front but let someone else read it first.

five: read it!!! kindle is the most common way to do this. you can go to your loan and click read with kindle. it'll download it to all your devices where you have kindle. as long as you have the loan, it'll act like your book. when the loan ends, if the device is connected to the internet, it'll automatically be returned. it will save all your notes and highlights. (if you disconnect your device from the internet, it won't return the book. weewoo.)

anyway in case anyone else has been wondering about it, i really love it. is a nice surprise to see what i'm going to get and it's cut my reading costs down big time! it's also neat because i get to synch my books between devices unlike downloading books through cough cough other means. good luck!

[softness-and-shattering]

"This book is about a youbg lady avoiding marriage to a guy she doesnt like by dressing up as a guy and going to london and making guy friends and getting into duels! Now she yhinks shes found her father, how to reveal her true identity, and make the boy shes fallen for her see her as a real lady"

TELL A TRANS STORY YOU COWARDS YOURE 95% THERE ALREADY.

[thek1tschwitch]

okay but, okay, so, when it was 1999 and the west wing season 1 ended did you all have to wait until 2000 until season 2 after the shooting fuck off. i mean yes i know this is how tv cliff hangers work. okay, like i really understand, i am old enough to understand this. and then at the end of season 4, you had to wait a whole half a year to find out of zoe was gonna die etc, etc. i know, i know, i promise i understand, but god, it would have ruined me...

honestly though, the excitement, the quantity of water cooler patter would have been delicious... what do we even say to each other at work anymore? have you seen [insert current tv series on amazon prime]? no, fuck off, i don't have amazon prime? (i am very nice to my co-workers (we talk about afl))

[geiszlercore]

haven't tried this yet myself but am planning to!

[spookside]

In Australia, authors (and illustrators, translators, editors and compilers) can get money from the government for library borrows.

Public Lending Right (PLR) and Educational Lending Right (ELR) are Australian Government programs that compensate Australian creators and publishers in recognition of income lost through free multiple use of their books in public and educational lending libraries. These programs support the enrichment of Australian culture by encouraging the growth and development of Australian writing.

I've had a couple of messages over the last few days from folks saying things like, "Sorry, I can only afford to get your book through the library," and I need you to know I am gripping you by the shoulders, I am shaking you gently, and I am begging you stop apologizing for using library services.

After Amazon and Payhip, the quarterly checks I get from Overdrive/Libby are my biggest and most reliable source of income.

My readers have been nothing but feral in their quest to get Hunger Pangs into as many libraries as possible, and while library lending pays an exceptionally modest amount, if enough people do it (which many of you evidently are), those pennies add up.

I am guaranteed at least $20 a month in library lending royalties. That might not sound like much to some folks, but to me, that's my b12 supplements covered for the month. That's the thing I need to keep me alive paid for.

I will never resent anyone who uses libraries instead of buying books.

I'm a disabled author who lives month to month at the mercy of my medical expenses. Even though I have incredibly generous patrons and supporters, I know what it's like to not be able to afford things.

Use the library. Please.

Use it guilt-free. You're helping the library and the authors, probably more than you realize.

And if you're in the US and haven't signed up for a @queerliblib free library card yet, you should! it doesn't matter what state you're in, the Queer Liberation Library offers free access to their catalogue of queer media across the US.

And if you've got the means, maybe help them out with a little donation. They're only able to expand their collection via the support of their patrons, and the work they're doing is hugely important.