Kindle's new lending program?

I reported a few days ago about receiving the Kindle for Christmas and I'm still loving it.  In fact, I am IN LOVE with it.  I can't wait to take all my "books" in my pocketbook when I go on long trips.  The cover with the light attached came in and I'm in Kindle light reading heaven.  The light works great, the cover looks great, I'm a happy happy camper.

I hear that now we have a new feature - we can now lend our ebooks out.  Here's what Amazon sent publishers the other day:

Dear Publisher,

We are excited to announce Kindle book lending (http://www.amazon. com/kindle- lending). The Kindle Book Lending feature allows users to lend digital books they have purchased through the Kindle Store to their friends and family. Each book may be lent once for a duration of 14 days and will not be readable by the lender during the loan period.

All DTP titles are enrolled in lending by default. For titles in the 35% royalty option, you may choose to opt out of lending by deselecting the checkbox under "Kindle Book Lending," in the "Rights and Pricing" section of the title upload/edit process. You may not choose to opt out a title if it is included in the lending program of another sales or distribution channel. For more details, see section 5.2.2 of the Term and Conditions.

For more info on how Kindle Book Lending works, see our FAQ here: http://forums. digitaltextplatf orm.com/dtpforum s/entry.jspa? externalID= 581

Sincerely,
Amazon Digital Text Platform

I am still not quite sure if I understand it all, but the way I'm seeing it is that you can lend out one of your ebooks for 14 days.  During that time, I won't be able to access the ebook.  When the 14 days are up, it comes back to me.  I'm taking it that whoever I would lend this ebook to, they can't lend it to anyone being as I'm the original book lender?

I'm thinking this is really a neat idea because of several things.  Let's just say a reviewer gets my copy of Uncle Joe Goes to Town.  The reviewer has 14 days to read this, then it must come back to me.  This might put the reviewer on the spot but still there would be a good deadline for which the book has to be read.  I'm not sure how good this will go over for reviewers since they are used to owning a copy themselves once they request it for a review and not being on a time limit unless it's a scheduled date for a tour.

Also, what I think is good about this is that I believe it opens up more people to more authors.  I see requests from reviewers asking about the first book in the series (if the book I queried them about is part of a new series), and they might want to read the others before they read the one they queried about.  If someone has one of those books stored in their e-reader, they can pass it along.

I don't know.  I love new things so I'm excited anyway. 

BTW, I started on my first ebook that I will be reviewing on January 14.  I only have a couple of weeks so I asked the author if she would get her publisher to send me a copy for my Kindle, figuring it was faster.  She ended up emailing me a gift Kindle copy which I thought was really nice of her. 

And I started.  And not only am I loving reading it on the Kindle but I am loving the book as well, which is fantastic.  The book is titled Sounds Like Crazy by Shana Mahaffey.  It. Is. Wonderful.  I'll be talking about it as the days go on and will be reviewing it as well but so far it's a big thumbs up from my little Kindle reading world.

Comments

[Michelle V]

I am so jealous! I really want a Kindle! Hopefully soon!