hoopla for Indie Authors

(NOT a typo, they use a small H. hoopla gonna hoopla)

hoopla is a digital lending platform serving public libraries across the United States, owned by Midwest Tape, a company with decades of experience supplying physical media to library systems. Launched in 2013, hoopla expanded rapidly into ebooks and audiobooks by offering something the dominant library platform of the time, OverDrive, didn't: unlimited simultaneous borrowing with no waitlists. A patron with a library card can open the hoopla app and borrow a book immediately, without waiting for another patron to return their copy first. That structural difference makes hoopla meaningfully distinct in how it serves readers — and meaningfully distinct in how it benefits authors whose books are in its catalog.



As of this writing, hoopla serves over 8,000 library systems, with a strong concentration in the United States. Its catalog spans ebooks, audiobooks, comics, music, and video, with the ebook and audiobook collections particularly relevant for indie authors pursuing wide distribution. The platform does not accept direct uploads from individual authors; access runs through approved distribution partners, primarily Draft2Digital for ebooks and Findaway Voices for audiobooks.

How hoopla Fits a Wide Strategy

A wide strategy, covered in this resource library's foundational wide-versus-KU article, depends on placing books across multiple channels rather than concentrating in a single retail ecosystem. Library distribution through hoopla represents a category of reader, the library patron who borrows digitally rather than purchasing, that retail platform distribution doesn't capture. Adding hoopla through an aggregator that already carries your titles requires minimal additional work and opens access to a reading audience that's meaningfully distinct from the one reached through Amazon, Apple, or Kobo.

• No-waitlist borrowing means a patron browsing the hoopla catalog can access your book immediately on impulse, removing the friction that causes library holdlists to suppress discovery for titles with limited licensed copies

• High-frequency borrowing potential: because there's no copy limit, a single title can generate multiple checkouts per day across hoopla's 8,000+ participating library systems simultaneously

• Audiobook emphasis: hoopla's interface and discovery mechanics are particularly strong for audio content, making it an especially valuable library channel for authors who have audiobook editions in addition to ebooks

• U.S. library coverage: while hoopla's international footprint is smaller than OverDrive's, its domestic U.S. reach is extensive and its patron base is actively engaged with digital borrowing

How Indie Authors Access hoopla

The Cost Per Circ Model

hoopla pays on a Cost Per Circ basis, meaning the author earns a royalty each time a patron borrows the book, rather than from a one-time library license purchase. The per-borrow rate varies depending on the title's length and the distributor pricing established during setup, but typically runs in the range of roughly a dollar to two-plus dollars per checkout for ebooks, with audiobook rates reflecting the higher price point of audio content. The practical implication is that a title earning frequent borrows across a large library network can generate meaningful, consistent income without any additional promotional activity by the author, since discovery happens through the library catalog rather than retail algorithms.

⚠ hoopla's per-borrow rates and the mechanics of how library pricing translates to author royalties depend on the distributor and can shift over time. Verify current rates directly with Draft2Digital or Findaway Voices rather than relying on any specific figures cited here, since these are subject to change as platform arrangements evolve.

Marketing on hoopla

hoopla doesn't offer a direct author-facing advertising or promotional system. Discoverability within the platform runs through catalog metadata — genre classification, subject tags, accurate title and series information — and through the promotional programs that Draft2Digital, Findaway Voices, and hoopla itself run periodically for library-facing audiences. Authors who maintain clean, complete metadata across their aggregators will generally have better catalog placement than those whose entries are incomplete or inconsistent. Beyond that, the best marketing a wide author can do for their hoopla presence is the same as what serves every library channel: a professional-looking cover, an accurate and compelling description, and correct genre categorization that makes the book easy to find by the right patron.

ScribeCount and hoopla

hoopla earnings flow through whichever aggregator distributes your title there — Draft2Digital for ebooks, Findaway Voices for audiobooks. ScribeCount imports royalty data from both of those distributors directly, which means hoopla income appears in your ScribeCount dashboard as part of the distributor's report without requiring separate manual tracking. Authors who want to isolate hoopla-specific performance can filter by platform within ScribeCount to see how library borrowing through hoopla compares to other library channels like OverDrive and Bibliotheca over time.

Conclusion

hoopla's no-waitlist model serves a specific kind of reader, the impulse borrower who wants access right now rather than waiting weeks on a hold queue, in a way that no retail platform and no other library channel quite replicates. For wide authors who already distribute through Draft2Digital or Findaway Voices, opting into hoopla distribution through those existing partners adds a meaningful library channel at essentially no additional cost or effort. It's one of the clearest examples in wide publishing of a channel worth adding specifically because the incremental burden of doing so is low relative to the audience it reaches.

 - Randall