Amazon.com’s Kindle Owners’ Lending Library is coming to the UK, Germany and France in October 2012 bringing Kindle owners with a Prime membership over 200,000 books to borrow for free as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates. Independent authors and publishers using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) who enrol their books in KDP Select can be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library in the UK, Germany and France, as well as the US. With the new lending libraries launching this month, the KDP Select fund has been increased by USD100,000 to USD700,000 in October, with a larger increase anticipated in November. Authors will earn money every time their book is borrowed from any of the lending libraries – in September, authors earned USD2.29 per borrow, which is more than many KDP books earn per sale.
“The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library was launched less than a year ago in the US and customers love it,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. “It’s also been great for independent authors, who get to reach a new audience and make money in a new way, and now they’ll be able to reach even more readers around the world. We’re excited to bring the lending library to the UK, Germany and France.”
Independent authors are experiencing increased sales by including their books in the US Kindle Owners’ Lending Library through KDP Select, an option for authors to make money through the lending library and promote their book for free. In September, KDP Select books that enrolled in August earned 77 percent more royalties from paid sales than the three months before they were enrolled in the program. This figure is conservative and only includes books that were available via KDP for the entire three months prior to enrolling in KDP Select. To learn more about KDP Select, visit http://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/KDPSelect.
The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library was launched in the US in November 2011 and offers access to a wide array of categories and genres in fiction and non-fiction. Soon Kindle owners with a Prime membership in the UK, Germany and France will also be able to choose from over 200,000 books to borrow for free – including thousands of local-language titles and all seven Harry Potter books in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish – as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates. No other e-reader or eBookstore offers such a service. To learn more about the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, visit: http://www.amazon.com/kindleownerslendinglibrary
(ACCESS 83, December 2012)
