I'd argue it probably doesn't affect it. I have certainly not seen any stats to support that argument. I most certainly would not wait to compete with the rest of the world to read a book once my spot in the queue finally arrived. I would simply buy it.

hm. That sounds valid on first thought.

On second thought, I don't think the demographic of "people buying (your) books" and "people borrowing (your) books from a library" have that much overlap.

People who borrow books from a library are usually people who either don't want to (or can't) buy all the books they like to read. In that case they are unlikely to buy the book anyway even if they can't find it in the library... OTOH people who love your books or your writings, or people who saw a review and think "I'd like to read that book" will buy it anyway and not read a scanned version of it on their small phone screen.

I mean I understand why authors would love it if libraries didn't exist and everyone had to buy the book to read it, I would probably be in the same boat if I were an author. But the calculation "1 borrowed book = 1 lost sale" is flawed the same way that software companies' "1 warez download = 1 lost sale" is flawed