Comments on: Lending a Book to a Friend with the Kindle (or How Kindle Harms Virality)

By: Sherrie

Sherrie — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:04:37 +0000

@JohnOz…as of right now Kindle apparently doesn’t allow book sharing but the B&N Nook does. I’m torn as I’m about to enter the e-reader market and I really like many of the features on the Kindle BUT it apparently doesn’t have a SD card slot and it doesn’t allow lending.

Guess I’ll sit on my hands a couple more weeks and see if the upgraded Kindle coming out this month has incorporated these things. Otherwise I guess I’m into buying 2 Nooks for me and a friend.

By: scottporad

scottporad — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:56:37 +0000

I don’t actually own a Kindle, so I don’t know the answer to that question.

By: JohnOz

JohnOz — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 01:25:59 +0000

Interesting reading on this subject as I soooo want to have an answer before I buy (maby three Kindles – 1 for me, 1 for partner and 1 for son) as we are avid readers and (mainly) have similar reading tastes. Can we share the same ebooks at the same time or not at the same time or not at all. This is not clear from the siries of posts.

By: linda

linda — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 12:27:13 +0000

dominique, I think your idea is wonderful

By: Ouida Forgione

Ouida Forgione — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:42:25 +0000

I actually enjoyed reading through this write-up.Many thanks.

By: Tyson F. Gautreaux

Tyson F. Gautreaux — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:05:21 +0000

Great post thx!

By: Dominique Pfeiffer

Dominique Pfeiffer — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:18:17 +0000

I just read your article because I was just googling the idea of lending books on a Kindle. The implementation would be easy, since all books are tracked on the Amazon account and you need one to use the Kindle.

All it would take was the option “lend book”. If you enter the Amazon account name, the book could be disabled on your account (with the note that it’s lended to soandso). And it could be activated to the other person with the note “borrowed from soandso”. Both could have the option to end the lending.

In this way it would not be duplicating books and it would resemble the practice of lending real books that you can’t read when you borrowed it to someone. Therefor there would still be reason enough to buy the book. Amazon could even add a buy option to a lended book, that would then automatically return the lended license to the owner.

What do you think?

By: SkylarkSD

SkylarkSD — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:39:18 +0000

I’ll admit it, as much as I love gadgets, I was hesitant about digital reading. Then two things happened: I got involved in the green movement and my book OUR LADY OF THE ASSASSINS was available on Kindle (OK. So one persuaded me more than the other!)

Got the Kindle, started charging the battery and VOILA! Not only did it know who I was (Amazon thoughtfully programmed it at their end so it had my name, e-mail address, etc.) but it took all of sixty seconds to figure out how to call up a title, navigate to the next page, change the font size, etc. Talk about painless!

Will it take some getting use to before I can read an entire novel? Perhaps. The screen resolution is crisp and clear (even under harsh office lighting) and the unit is so tissue paper thin that you don’t have to worry about holding a heavy or clumsy paperback. Improvements? Well, as mentioned by many others a memory slot would be nice and a color screen would make it perfect (remember: it gets periodicals from most major papers – many of whom use color photos).

So, if you were hesitant, don’t be shy. It is user friendly, set up is practically done for you before you open the box and it’s fun!

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:23:48 +0000

My wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, and one or two of their friends lend books to each other all the time. eBook readers will have to accommodate this practice if they expect to succeed in this reading market place.

I don’t think the copyright on a book anywhere prevents it from being read by more than one reader?

Mike

By: Lorraine

Lorraine — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:58:58 +0000

Have you ever read any of Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels? The third in the series, “The Well of Lost Plots,” captures these troubling issues rather well although it was published a few years before the Kindle was released. Incidentally this is also a series I’ve recommended and loaned out to a number of friends.