The library here now has more than 300 reservations for "The Cuckoo's Calling" and 46 additional copies on order.
Our library has four copies (so far) with 25 on order and another 20 copies to be ordered (I just got the order about a half hour ago) and only 206 holds...so far. However, the additional 20 copies yet to be ordered will be leased books. We started leasing books at the beginning of this year, so we won't have to keep all of these copies when there is no more interest.
How does leasing work & where do you send the extra copies? Our library in Michigan had hot books for $.50 with only a 1 or 2 week check out. I'm sure the charge eventually covered the cost of the book. I was very happy to pay little for a newish clean book.
We get books from our major vendor, Baker & Taylor. Our adult fiction selector (that's the only kind of books that we're leasing: adult fiction) gets to select titles based on any criteria...for the most part, it's the number of requests or the potential to be a real high demand title. We get a certain quantity per year and have to send back 70% of them. We get to keep whatever titles we want just as long as we send 70% back. We get to keep up to 30%, so we can keep the ones we really need to.
If any are damaged by patrons, those can be part of the 30% that we "keep." If any are defective from the publisher, we can get replacements for those without counting as additional copies. Since we just started this year, we don't have to start sending any back until the beginning of next year. We send them back to B&T, but I have no idea what they do with them and it's not my concern.
