Penguin suspends ebook library lending

AP reported earlier today that Penguin Group has suspended making e-editions of new books available to libraries and won't allow libraries to loan any e-books for Amazon.com's Kindle e-readers and tablets.

Why? "We have always placed a high value on the role that libraries can play in connecting our authors with our readers," the publisher announced in a statement Monday according to AP. "However, due to new concerns about the security of our digital editions, we find it necessary to delay the availability of our new titles in the digital format while we resolve these concerns with our business partners."

You could only wonder if this is really the issue here or it's actually about revenues, or more specifically lost revenues Penguin is worried about. Somehow I got the feeling that a financial arrangement will sort this out, not an extra safeguard on Penguin's digital editions.

More updates on ebook lending can be found on our ebook lending page.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

On Amazon Kindle new lending library: The good, the bad and the ugly

Yesterday Amazon opened the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, allowing Amazon Prime members to rent one digital book per month for free. Right now, this library includes 5,000 titles, including over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers.

Coming from Amazon, this is a big step in the ebook space and we thought it's worth looking into three consequences of it: the good, the bad and the ugly.

The good: If you are a Kindle holder and also Amazon Prime member you just got yourself a free ebook every month. This is also good news to ebook lending fans in general - the market is and will get more competitive and readers will be the ones that will profit from it eventually. For example, right now ebook lending services such as eBookFling and BookLending, as well as libraries, let you rent ebooks only up to 14 days. Now that Amazon is offering you to rent a book for one month, there's a good chance other players in the market will eventually try to offer a similar offer.

The bad: Amazon is conquering another piece of the ebook market. It's true that right now it's only a pilot program offered to Prime members, but how much time do you think it will take Amazon to dominate the market? Not too much I guess. So even though the entrance of Amazon to this market will benefit readers (see the good part), it also helps to strengthen the status of Amazon as the most powerful player in the book market. And with Amazon exploring other parts of this market like publishing and self-publishing, it looks like that in couple of years Amazon won't be just a powerful player in the book market, but it will be the book market. This is definitely not a desirable future for this industry.

The  ugly: This move is bad news for brick and mortar bookstores in general and independent bookstores specifically, as it will help to energize the transformation to ebooks  (if this trend needs any help at all) and make more people do their ebook activity, whether its shopping or renting through Amazon. Not to mention that it provides readers that are not Prime members a good reason to consider paying the $79 annual fee and become Prime members. And once they become Prime members, with the free two day shipping, there's also a good chance they will start doing their paper book shopping only on Amazon, enjoying this shipping benefit. Again, not a desirable situation if you're an independent bookstore or even Barnes & Noble.

To read more updates on the ebook lending space check our ebook lending page.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant a tree for every book you read!

Interested in borrowing an ebook? Check our comparison of BookLending and eBookFling

As ebook lending becomes a growing trend, we see more websites that fulfill the role of marketplace, matching ebook lenders and borrowers.

But who are these websites? And what they offer those of you who want to take advantage of the feature allowing Kindle and Nook users to swap ebooks with each others? We decided to provide you with a comparison of the three websites that seems to lead the ebook lending market - eBookFling, BookLending and Lendle.

At least that was our initial intention. We contacted the owners of these 3 websites and asked them to answer couple of questions, but only Catherine MacDonald of BookLending and George Burke of eBookFling got back to us. Although we wrote couple of times to Jeff Croft of Lendle, we didn't hear back from him. Therefore it's going to be a comparison between BookLending and eBookFling.

We hope you will find it useful and if you have any information or experiences with one of these websites you would like to add, feel free to add a comment!

First, a short video from each of the two websites and then a comparison between the two:







1. Who created the website?
BookLending (BL): Catherine MacDonald
eBookFling (EF): BookSwim

2. Lending Length
BL: 14 days
EF: 14 days

3. Where you're located?
BL: We are Canadians who are currently traveling abroad
EF: New Jersey

4. How many users you have? Are you serving also non-US users?
BL: We have over 19,000 users and we do serve non-US users.
EF: We crossed the 10,000 user mark in less than a week after launching. We've been growing steadily. These are all US-based members with plans to expand as soon as Amazon/B&N open up lending overseas.

5. Is it only available to both Kindle and Nook users?
BL: Yes, only Kindle users.
EF: Available to both Kindle and Nook users

6. Is it a free service?
BL: Yes. You don't need to pay anything to borrow ebooks, no matter if you make e-books available for loan or not.
EF: Yes, but only if other users borrow books from you. You get one credit point for every book you lend which can be used to borrow another ebook. But if you don't earn credit points (i.e. no one wants to borrow your books..), you will need buy credits for $1.99 per credit.

7. Do you need to loan books to others to be able to borrow?
BL: No. There's no such requirement.
EF: No, but then you'll need to pay $1.99 for every ebook you want to borrow.

8. What's your best user-friendly feature?
BL: Members love our Browse by Genre and "Read It Today" features.
EF: eBookFling.com allows members to manage notifications on books in their wishlist so they're not inundated with "this book is now available" emails for books they're not yet ready to read. Similarly, we send out loan requests one at a time, rather than blast all lenders every time someone asks to borrow a book.

9. How many people operate your business?
BL: Right now, we have a core group of two plus our wonderful development team.
EF: 4 of BookSwim's team initially founded the eBookFling.com service and we're expanding. We just hired a social media manager and are on the lookout for an ad-sales person.

10. What Is your business model?
BL: Commission and display advertising based.
EF: Revenue from credits, commission on ebook sales and in the future selling ad space and providing other services (acting as marketing tool for authors and publishers for example)

11. In one sentence - What differentiate you from the other websites?
BL: We're not just a free, fair and easy-to-use platform, but also a community of Kindle book enthusiasts.
EF: A. We manage the entire lend process by masking a book requester's email address which keeps the privacy of all our members while also allowing us to track when a book has been successfully delivered and reaching out to others if the loan never came through. B. Our use of credits as a swapping currency ensures that there is never any deficit of available books to borrow. C. As far as I'm aware, eBookFling.com is the only service with Nook and Kindle titles, allowing for more availability of books.

For more information visit eBookFling at http://ebookfling.com/ and BookLending at http://www.booklending.com/

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Why HarperCollins decision to limit their ebook lending will not help their ebook sales

HarperCollins announced last week that new titles licensed from library ebook vendors will be able to circulate only 26 times before the license expires. This is the first time a publisher is restricting the use of e-books in libraries - so far, as the NYT explained yesterday, libraries that have paid for the privilege of making a publisher’s e-books available for borrowing have typically been granted the right to lend an e-book an unlimited number of times. What it means for many libraries.

HarperCollins explained in a statement they " believe this change balances the value libraries get from our titles with the need to protect our authors and ensure a presence in public libraries and the communities they serve for years to come."

HarperCollins clearly wants to limit sure ebook lending so it won't jeopardize its ebook sales, but are they taking the right step? At least from a business point of view, I believe the answer is No.

HarperCollins are definitely right that it's much easier to borrow an ebook than a paper book - you don't even have to go to the library. Many times you can just go to your library's website and get the requested ebook in a minute or two without leaving your chair for a second. This convenience is observed by HarperCollins as a threat to their ebook business - if it's so easy, wouldn't a growing number of people choose to do it instead of buying the ebook?

The answer is probably Yes, but the problem of HaperCollins is that they can't stop it by limiting the number of times libraries can loan their ebooks.

Why? Because libraries are not the only ones lending ebooks. With both the Nook and the Kindle providing the option to borrow and lend ebooks for two weeks, we see a growing number of websites that provide convenient platform for readers to exchange ebooks. Today you have websites such as BookLending.com, Books for My Kindle, Books for My Nook and eBookFling.com (not operating yet), where you can borrow and lend ebooks easily and for free.

Now, I'm not sure if HarperCollins' restrictions will apply also to individual lending, but even if this is the case, with a growing number of exchange platforms and users, these restrictions will become meaningless. You can stop tens of thousands of libraries, but you can't stop millions of ebook readers that would like to borrow and lend books to each other.

The bottom line is that HarperCollins not only made libraries rightfully angry, but to my opinion also made a poor decision from a business point of view. If they want to increase their ebook sales, they need to look for real creative marketing ideas and forget about limiting the lending options of their ebooks.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!