Confirm library distribution routes
Verify ebook and audiobook library availability
At launch, confirm that your digital editions can be licensed by libraries through the lending platforms they use, since consumer availability says nothing about library availability.
Authors often hire help with this: metadata or distribution, library or cataloging.
Why it matters
Digital lending is a large and growing share of library use, and for many readers the library app is the only place they look. A book absent from those platforms is invisible to them. The arrangement is easy to set up and easy to overlook, and nobody at the consumer retailers will tell you it is missing.
Your part
- What you do
- Verify. Someone else may do it. Inspect the result yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Publisher and Author and Distributor. Publisher or distributor licenses to library platforms; author verifies
- When
- At launch, and whenever distribution or licensing changes (Confirm library distribution routes: six to three months before publication, before you ask any library to buy)
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
Libraries lend ebooks and audiobooks through platforms such as OverDrive (and its Libby app), hoopla, cloudLibrary, and others, which license titles from publishers and aggregators under terms set for library use (a fixed number of loans, a time-limited license, or simultaneous-use pricing). A book that is on every consumer store can be absent from every one of these, because library licensing is a separate arrangement with separate terms.
Verifying means checking, for each digital format, whether it is available to libraries and on which platforms. The most direct check is to search the Libby and hoopla apps, or a large library system's digital catalog, for the title; if it is there, some library has licensed it and others can. The more reliable check is to ask the publisher or distributor which library platforms carry the title and under what license model.
Ask specifically about library platforms, because consumer ebook distribution is often the only thing that has been set up. At a publisher or a press, digital licensing decides this. If you publish the book yourself, it depends on the distributor you used for each format: some aggregators supply OverDrive, hoopla, and others, a retailer exclusivity program prevents library lending entirely, and audio reaches libraries through a smaller set of distributors that not every self-publishing audio route includes.
Check at launch and whenever the license or distribution changes.
There is no single place to check: library ebook and audiobook lending is split across OverDrive and Libby, Hoopla, cloudLibrary, and others. Check the platforms the libraries you care about actually use; for most public libraries in the United States that starts with OverDrive and Libby.
Common mistakes
- Assuming an ebook on the major stores is available to libraries.
- Enrolling in a retailer exclusivity program without realizing it removes the book from library platforms.
- Forgetting the audiobook, which has a separate and narrower library route.
- Telling librarians the ebook is available without checking which platform.
Identifiers for Verify ebook and audiobook library availability
Set a status on any record and it joins this step. All book identifiers.
| My status | Identifier | Why this matters | Yours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baker & Taylor (closed) A former U.S. library wholesaler that closed in January 2026; this record is kept for history, not as a route to libraries. | Older advice tells authors to get their book into Baker & Taylor, and following it now costs you time for nothing. The live question is which wholesaler each library uses today and whether your book is orderable there. Ask the library which wholesaler it uses now. Common current routes include Ingram, Brodart, and Bookazine, but the library's own answer controls. Traditionally and hybrid published authors normally ask the publisher or distributor which library wholesalers now carry the book. A self-publisher normally checks that Ingram availability is in place, since that is the usual route into library wholesale. The useful answer now is the name of a wholesaler through which a library can actually order your book. | Nothing to record |
What done looks like
- For each digital format, the library platforms that carry it and the license model, confirmed with the publisher or distributor.
- The title found in Libby, hoopla, or a large system's digital catalog as a real-world check.
- Gaps understood: exclusivity, an aggregator that does not supply libraries, or audio without a library route.
- The information added to the library information sheet and the ordering note.
- Re-checked when distribution changes.
Evidence. Done means someone says the work happened. Verified means you checked the confirmation, link, or public record yourself.
Ask your publisher
Copy this into an email. Replace the bracketed parts with your details.
Sources and last checked
- Official source
- No single official page for this step.
- Last checked
- Not checked against its source yet.
- How confident we are
- Verified