I overheard someone talking about lending ebooks using their Kindle this weekend and since I am not a Kindle owner I didn’t really get too excited about it – but apparently it is not exclusive to Kindle owners – iPad owners can take part in the fun as well.
By the way did you know that you can get a brand new Kindle for $114 at Amazon
Anyway, getting back to lending your eBooks, there is a service called Lendle.me which allows you to lend ebooks using your Kindle (or iPad, Blackberry, Android, etc) to others and make money in the process!
In another review of Lendle the reviewer makes a good point about lending ebooks and why Lendle is such a valuable service:
“After all, you can only lend a Kindle e-book once, and so Lendle and the other similar e-book lending services like BookLending.com have depended on the altruism of their users in order to grant that one-time loan to a complete stranger.”
How it works
The process is pretty simple. You sign up for an account and list the ebooks that you own and want to lend out to others. Then when someone wants to borrow a book that you own you will get a request to let them borrow it. You then approve the request and the borrower will have 14 days to borrow the book and you get paid.
How much do they pay?
Standard Lendle users get paid $.50 for each borrow, however if you make a one-time donation of $25 you will get paid $1.00 for each book lent out.
Putting this to use
As more and more of these eBook lending services start popping up, it seems to be making the idea of an eBook reader a better deal. First off, there are tons of completely free ebooks you can download, you can borrow ebooks from others to save some cash, and now even if you buy your own you can make some of that money back (or even profit?) from lending your ebooks to others.
Paper books will always have a place in my heart and there are some that I will always buy in paper form, but for me there are some types of books that are well-suited for an ebook reader.
Kindle users: what do you think? Would you do this?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I would definitely do this! I have several books that I’m not currently using that I would lend out. It’d be a great way to pay for my reading habit too.
I love this service. I find alot of my books aren’t lendable, but still a great idea. I’m guessing that will open up once a little time has gone by on the new releases. I’ve also found a few books to borrow that I had been meaning to read, but didn’t want to pay $10 for.
Thanks.