I was so chuffed to see this – Scrublands and Treasure & Dirt topping the list of e-books borrowed from Australian public libraries in 2021. Like an early Christmas present!
A huge part of this ranking is due to OverDrive, the company that runs the Libby digital app used by Australian libraries. They featured Scrublands for a couple of weeks in September as part of their ‘Together We Read’ campaign. No doubt this gave Scrublands in particular a leg up.
A few people have asked whether I’m disappointed to see readers borrowing books instead of buying them. Not for me. The main thing is that people are reading my books. If they like them, then possibly they’ll buy some in the future.
Libraries play a very important role in supporting and advancing culture and education in Australia, so I’m all for them. And some people simply can’t afford to buy all the books they read. Think of a pensioner reading two or three books a week, for example.
That said, I’m also supportive of the Australian Society of Authors and its campaign to extend the Commonwealth Government’s Public Lending Rights (PLR) scheme to cover e-books as well as physical books.
