The difference between lending, borrowing and pirates.
There is always chatter on writer loops about websites Pirating eBooks. This is a huge problem and does often take revenue from the author and publisher. True, pirate sites should be shut down, but spending the time chasing them and sending take down notices takes up a lot of valuable writing time from the author. But one website recently struck a huge cord in the writing community. I saw a lot of talk amongst authors regarding this site in at least five different loops and on various writer boards.
The site is Lendink. I’m not promoting the site or suggesting that readers or writers use it. There are many other sites like this one such as eBook Exchange, Lending eBook and on Goodreads if you go to their groups and search for lending eBooks you will find message boards of readers who are willing to lend out their eBooks to other users. (Amendment: It appears the Lendink site is no longer valid. I get an error when going there that says the site either was overused or owner ran out of resources.)
Everyone breathe and let me explain what lending is and how it works (when used as it is intended).
When you publish on KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) you have the option to allow those who purchase your book to lend it to ONE person for 14 days. Once the other person hits 14 days, the book disappears from their Kindle account. The same is true for Pubit (Barnes and Noble). What this means is that if I buy Atlantis by Bob Mayer I can loan my copy to one of my friends (who has a Kindle account) for 14 days. Once that time frame is up, the book is gone and my friend no longer has access to it. AND, and this is a big AND, I can only lend the book ONE time.
What these sites do is hook one reader up with another to share books they LOVED. This to me is awesome both as a reader and an author. Why? Because the more people who read my book, the more people are more likely to buy one of my other books, so if one found me through it being lent from a friend, then yippee for me.
Word of mouth is still the number one way to sell books.
So are these sites bad? It’s a gray area, but one that can actually help the author. Consider this. Your book, your name, your brand…is listed on a site readers hang out. They are not selling your book illegally, they are simply lending the book for a short period of time to another user. This is readers’ talking to readers’ and well, readers rule.
I do want to clear up one other thing. This is very different from the Amazon Lending Library, which allows members for Amazon Prime to download free eBooks. The author gets paid for each of those downloads (done through the KDP select program) and the sale goes towards your book’s rankings.
I agree, those who pirate books, meaning steal the authors work and sell it for a profit should be shut down. However, this gray area of lending books is something we, as an industry, need to understand and figure out if and how it adds value to our overall careers. The technology is changing rapidly and we need to be aware of what is going on and how it affects our business.
Go here to find more information about Kindle Lending. Go here to find out about lending on Nook. To my knowledge, you can’t lend books via the iBookstore. You can borrow books from you local library and read them on on your Kobo reader. FYI, Cool Gus is getting their books into the library system through Overdrive. Working on that right now.
Thoughts?
Posted on August 2, 2012, in Write It forward and tagged Amazon Kindle, Amazon Prime, Barnes & Noble, Bob Mayer, E-book, eBook, Nook, Overdrive. Bookmark the permalink. 24 Comments.
Sincerest thanks, Jen. Sharing this on my FB page. Really appreciate the clarity. LT
Psst, Jen, you mean “intended.”
My thought on all this is “There needs to be a Scopes.com just for authors.”
It pains me to read people ranting about this topic. I want people to be interested in my work. I want those people to find another online. I want them to rate and review my work and shelve it in their online reading shelves right next to authors whose work I admire. Then I want new readers to discover my work and the cycle to continue.
Scopes? Snopes. Ah, monkey trials, urban legends, whatever!
Thanks, Jen! I like LendInk. Great way to connect with more people who want to borrow books they could buy on their own. Like a library, but more restrictive as far as borrowing only once goes.
I wonder how this site makes it’s money.
I also wonder how I may benefit or lose? I assume it will only mean those who have bought my books can lend them to a stranger – once?
I am on the whole, not in favor of any site that distributes my work, by what ever method, without my permission.
I’m afraid I do not share Bobs’ opinion about this site. It seems just another way to distribute work free and avoid copyright issues.
Davidrory.
My understanding is that they make money by people who sponsor or advertise on their site. And yes, anyone who bought your book can only lend it once.
I certainly understand where you are coming from. My initial reaction was this can’t be good. However, after looking at it more closely I personal can see an added value but with a caveat and if they are some how scamming the system, then by all means, find a way to shut them down. Like I said, I’m not promoting or suggesting anyone use them or anything, I’m just looking at it from my perspective as author, reader and business person.
Thanks for the timely post, Jen. This has been the hot topic all day in a writers’ forum I belong to, and I’m completely bemused by the fuss.
Is this any different from say clearing out your shelves and taking an armload of print books down to the charity shop (which I’ve been guilty of) or from saying to your sister “I loved this book, take my copy and read it”?
Just because a book is electronic doesn’t mean it’s any different. Readers still want to share books they love, and this way readers discover new authors to love. Why does it get labelled piracy when it’s an ebook and word of mouth when it’s a print book? What a double standard.
I agree! I’m not sure where the “gray area” is with lending ebooks through legitimate sites? These concerns seem a little tech-phobic.
An author friend received this letter from Amazon…so, what are the ramifications? Because they lend through Amazon it’s okay? Looking for clarity…
Hello Author,
We have NOT authorized lendink.com to loan your book and have not provided your file to them.
If you’ve found your work available on an unauthorized website such as lendink.com, we suggest contacting that website to confirm your rights and request removal of your work. If you distribute your book through other sales channels, you might contact them to inquire as to whether they have authorized the inclusion of your book on lendink.com.
Our lending program allows a purchaser to lend a title once and does not allow the recipient to re-loan that book. For more information about Kindle book lending, check out this page:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200549320&#loan
I hope this helps. Thanks for using Amazon KDP.
I honestly don’t know the answer to that question. I do know that I can lend whoever I want one of the books in my library (as long as they have a Kindle account). The thing is these sites are not distributing your content, they are just hooking you up with another user to share a single copy. It is a gray area.
I know, I know, I’m still essentially 19th century, but without my public library lending movies, CDs, and books — especially books — I would be culture-less. So lending is a fine tradition.
I think e-lending will need the kinks worked out along with the rest of the e-publishing “issues”. It’s still such a new delivery system, there are bound to be glitches. It’s the nature of the beast.
We are lemmings sometimes, aren’t we?
It only took five minutes of poking around this site to discover what it was about. The Facebook page for this site has been peppered with angry posts about removing their books. KDP books are lendable at the %70 royalty rate by default. It’s ok for a random reader who buys our books to lend it out but not for a website to act as the broker? This isn’t the only site, either. I’m in agreement with your assesment, no harm, no foul and might add some extra visibility.
I’m still too early in the game for me to worry about these things,(not yet published,) but to an author with multiple works out there, it seems like something with possible benefits. It will be interesting to see how programs like this evolve over the next few years.
Thanks for the info!
My local library lends ebooks and audio books. You can even borrow them through their website without going down to the library to get them. I don’t see that there is a need for these lending type sites. Why not direct people to their local library to borrow ebooks if they can’t afford to buy them?
The same could be done with the pirating sites. If you know someone who is getting pirated books, then tell them to borrow books from their local library instead. Yes, it would be better if they buy the book, but if they aren’t going to do that, then direct them to a legitimate way of reading the book for free. If you take away the pirate’s customers, they will stop stealing your books.
If I buy a hardcopy of your book, I can lend it out to as many people as I want and I can give the book to anyone that I want to give it to. This is one way of building word of mouth advertising for books. The KDP and PubIt lending programs are more restrictive than what I can do with the physical book, so I don’t see what the problem is with these programs.
Why would anyone buy an ebook? With all the sites that are popping up to let you “borrow” a book, like Lendink, eBookExchange, Lending eBook, lendle.me, booklending, and others, just read the book for free. Yes, it is similar to a library where you check out books to read. But authors sell or give their books to libraries. More importantly, I think, authors decide to give their book away as part of a program they signed up for, such as the program with Amazon. In the case of these online sites, authors have no say-so. If it’s okay for each person to share a book on these sites while the author’s book is part of a sharing program on Amazon, will these “lending” sites take down the book once that period is over? I doubt it.
The copy that gets lent has already been paid for. Just like a public library. And authors have the chance to opt out of lending.
David
Thanks so much for a clear and panic free post. I’ve been trying to say this for the best part of a week, but every time I put my head above the parapet I got shot down in flames! It’s the ‘lend a book to a friend’ facility, and it’s for a period of 14 days. (The Kindle Owners Lending Library is a different thing, and we get paid for those) The site was never a pirate site, never hijacking people’s books, never HAD people’s books at all. One way this site was (I assume) hoping to make some money was via Amazon Associates links. When I checked out my books on there, there were ‘buy’ buttons all linking to Amazon. (What pirate site ever encourages visitors to buy?) Which is exactly what I do with my own books on my blogs. Many people would have simply bought a book if they found something they liked the look of and couldn’t borrow it. What’s not to like about that? This isn’t uncontrolled lending. Amazon controls it, it’s one loan per book for 14 days and it’s what we sign up to. After which it will disappear from whatever Kindle it has been loaned to. All this site was doing, was matching up readers for those one off 14 day loans and listing books for sale on Amazon where no loan was available. I assume Amazon had to respond because so many people were telling them that LendInk had hijacked the books. They hadn’t and they made that clear on the site. All they were doing was facilitating a legitimate one off reader to reader loan. In traditional publishing, what say do authors ever have? Books get passed around ten or so friends or sold on from charity shop to charity shop.
I’m all for any Ebook Lending Options that, just like u said, Jen, allows a new reader to find u! Heck, even the pirating doesn’t bother me. Look at it this way…if u are pirated, u r in demand. Did y’all know that most pirating is done in Third World Countries because they don’t have legal channels to get books. For me, it’s an honor to treat those people to a great read that brightens what is a not so bright life.
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