You Can Now Lend Kindle Books

Posted by Mylène on
. . . and here's the link that tells you how.

Thanks, by the way to all of you who are using your gift cards to buy my books (and the books of all BoxOcto writers) on Kindle.  At least, I imagine that's what's accounting for the uptick!

Comments

Colleen Thompson said…
I'm glad they've instituted what seems a fair and reasonable lending policy. As a reader, I know I"ll enjoy it, and as an author, I'm always happy for the book pimpage.
7:15 PM
Kathryn Peterson said…
Ha ha ha, I just bought one! :) And isn't it hard to balance our needs as readers with our needs as writers in this arena? I used to go 100% for the reader before I started putting so much time into my own novel, but now I lean towards the writer's side in these legal matters. I've gone from being an avid patron of Half Price Books (sorry y'all) to frowning at Mark and saying "but what if everyone lends a copy on their Kindles?" Your comment, though, Colleen, seems to point towards a hopeful balance.
10:43 PM
Mylène said…
The nice thing, Kat, is you can only lend a book once; you can only lend it for 14 days; and you can't read it yourself while you've lent it out. So my hope is that's it's a way to build audience in a (restrained) manner that will help the bottom line rather than eat into it. I do think it will tend to work better for those of us with multiple titles on Kindle (if someone likes a lent book, they may then buy another one), and I do think we need to negotiate this via our agents when it comes to deals (because the publisher decides whether a book can be lent or not; can decide it is lendable only for a short period of time; etc.). Something for debut authors to keep in mind.

We also have to remember people lent books (rather than bought them) back in the not-yet-dead days of hard- and paperbacks. And could lend them again and again. At the beginning of my career, I met with a book group who had all shared a single copy of The Medusa Tree (now I stipulate that all members of a group must buy the book if they would like me to attend their meeting--although I must say, e-readers will make that harder to confirm).
10:50 AM
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