Lending Kindle Books: Another Disappointment
0There is a very good reason some people are still hesitant about fully adopting e-readers and going with e-books. All the restrictions that publishers and authors are putting on their works are giving people second thoughts about the benefits of paying for an e-reader and e-books instead of investing in physical books. Amazon Kindle’s book lending feature is the latest disappointment for e-book addicts. Many of us were quite discouraged by authors disabling text-to-speech feature in their Kindle e-books. Apparently, not every Kindle book can be borrowed either. While having the ability to lend Kindle e-books to others is very exciting, it is not available for all e-books.
Want to figure out whether your e-book supports lending? Amazon has provided its customers with a simple to follow set of instructions:
For titles you already own, you can check the Your Orders section in Manage Your Kindle. Click the “+” symbol next to a title to reveal additional information about the title. If lending is enabled, you’ll see a Loan this book button next to the product image…. You can initiate a loan from Manage Your Kindle or the book’s product detail page on Amazon.com. You’ll enter the borrower’s name and e-mail address and an optional notification message. Your recipient can receive the book loan even if they do not yet have a Kindle or Kindle reading application.
As you go through your orders and find the books that allow loaning, you can send them to others by filling the appropriate form. E-books can be loaned once for 14 days.
Here are a few things worth knowing about loaning books using a Kindle:
- book lenders won’t be able to read their book until loan period has ended.
- not all loan requests can be accepted (copyright restrictions).
- loans need to be accepted within 7 days.
- borrowers get notified 3 days before their book’s expiration date.
- Kindle book lending is only available in the U.S.
- Kindle book lending is not available for all e-books.
While we consider this move to be a great step forward for Amazon, it is disappointing that people won’t be able to do as they wish with their e-books. E-books can’t be resold. In this case, many can’t be loaned either. That is not very encouraging.
What’s your take? Should Kindle e-book lending be allowed for all e-books on Amazon?
