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From the press release:

More than 100,000 books are now available in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, including over 100 current and former New York Times Best Sellers. The vast majority of these titles are exclusive to Kindle and published using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) – a self-service, easy-to-use platform for independent authors and publishers. When KDP authors choose to participate in KDP Select, their books are automatically included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

Early sales data indicates that inclusion in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library not only generates additional revenue from loans for authors, but actually increases customer purchases of authors’ work as well.

  • In the case of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, 24% of customers who borrowed “The Hunger Games” bought “Catching Fire” and 24% bought “Mockingjay,” despite the entire series being available to borrow for free in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.
  • Debora Geary was one of the top 10 KDP Select authors in February, and 51% of customers who borrowed one of her books from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library went on to buy one of her titles.
  • L.J. Sellers, author of the Detective Jackson Mystery/Thriller series, saw that 25% of customers who borrowed one of her books also bought one of her books, all of which are also available in the lending library.
  • Since the launch of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library in November 2011, the paid retail sales of backlist trade titles in the library have seen 229% higher growth than corresponding titles that are not enrolled.

4 COMMENTS

  1. This should be no surprise. I checked out Game of Thrones from Overdrive and since have purchased it, and books 2 and 3, and will purchase the rest when I am ready to read them.

    Many people do not borrow books because they are too cheap to pay for them. They borrow them because they fear they may not like them enough to justify paying for them. If they discover that they do like them, they are willing to buy because they know what they are getting for their money.

    I would expect this to be even more true of the Kindle Lending Library books, because these books may be from less well known authors. When you don’t know the author, the book is a riskier purchase. If the book turns out to be good, it can quickly lead to a purchase – especially for these books, which tend to be priced lower than Agency 6 books. Of course, if the book is no good, the lending library probably won’t help much.

    And book samples are no substitute for being able to borrow the whole book. A sample only tell you whether or not you like the writer’s style – not whether or not they can tell a good story from beginning to end.

  2. Robert –

    My spending on ebooks has gone up dramatically since I joined Lendle. I am no longer hesitant to try new authors, and buy my own copies to support the authors I enjoy. I have also purchased many backlist books.

    I read about ebookfling and don’t like that they only send your borrow request to one person at time. It apparently can take a while to go down a list before they send the request to the masses. Lendle sends your request out to the masses at once – in my experience lend requests are filled VERY fast.

    I am a member of Booklending, but don’t like that if more than one person requests a book, the lender gets to pick who to give it to. Lendle gives loans out in the order they were requested – I know my place in line and no one gets to cut.

    I’m sure others are very happy with those other sites, and will tell you why soon 😉

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