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Amazing!  Andrys Basten has the full lowdown on her Kindle World Blog:

KINDLE OWNERS LENDING LIBRARY WITH NY TIMES BESTSELLERS, FOR PRIME MEMBERS

The title is in caps, because I really didn’t expect the Kindle Owners Lending Library program would actually be put into effect, knowing how stubborn some publishers are about allowing even public libraries to lend their e-books.  But those particular publishers may not be involved in this lending library either.  We’ll see. [ See Update added same night. ]

I’m posting the news first and can add more details as we learn them later on.  I did just tweet this news as it’s quite a coup, at least in my view.

Check out all the details and updates in her article.

1 COMMENT

  1. A few points to note:
    1- none of the BPHs are involved: they are still obsessed with protecting the “perceived value” of there older titles and “concerned” about harming their relationship with other retailers (read: Apple)
    2- in some cases, Amazon is *buying*, at wholesale, the copy they are lending out just to prove to the publisher that it won’t hurt sales
    3- the Lending Library is intended primarily as a value-add to Prime, not to Kindle. Just like Special Offers, it uses Kindle popularity to build up the client base for another Amazon product.
    4- still, the service is only available to Kindle devices, not apps, so it might drive some reader sales to Prime users, most likely among the .edu $39 subscribers.

    I’m seeing this as a demo/pilot for a broader netflix-style lending library. To get some real world behavioral data on how customers us the service and how it impacts sales. They could use this data to try to convince other publishers to join in, to expand it, or to cancel it.

    A worthy experiment to try and a nice warning to the industry that they have no intention of standing still; if you want to play in the ebook business, you’ll have to run as fast as you can just to keep them in sight.

    Competition is fun, no?

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