As announced yesterday*, Hachette Digital is raising prices on its currently available library eBook catalog (roughly 3,500 titles with release dates of April 2010 and earlier) effective Oct. 1, 2012. Examples of the new pricing include: “Breaking Dawn” by Stephenie Meyer will increase from $22.99 to $34.99; “4^th of July” by James Patterson will go from $13.99  to $20.99; and David Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day” will go from $14.99 to $37.99.

For all Hachette Digital eBook orders placed before 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, Sept. 30, libraries can add Hachette titles at current pricing. This includes orders that are currently in your Content Reserve work queue, as well as any new orders you create during the remainder of the month of September. Any orders with Hachette eBook content remaining in your Content Reserve work queue and submitted after Sept. 30 will be processed under the new pricing.

We understand that any cost increase comes as unwelcome news at a time when library budgets are tight, but we’re encouraged that Hachette has opted to continue participating in library lending. Hachette audiobooks are not affected by this price change.

To help you stretch your library budget, we’re offering hundreds of popular titles at 30-percent off during the month of September, and we’ve just added 40,000 new titles from a diverse group of publishers, with many titles priced under $10.

If you have questions about how Hachette’s new pricing will affect your digital collection, please contact our collection development team.

Michael Lovett is Public Relations and Social Media Specialist at OverDrive.

*Editor’s Note: In our initial email to library partners announcing the Hachette price increase, we made an error in calculating the percentage of the increase. On average, the cost of Hachette eBooks for libraries will increase by 104 percent, or 2.04 times the current price.