Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Only in the US, unfortunately.
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For as many people as request this (or complain about it) the interesting thing to me is that the two lending sites I'm on don't seem terribly active. Now that could be because lending can only be done once. Or it could be because the vast majority of books that people want are the expensive ones (8 or so US or UP.) I joined lendleme to see how it all worked and for the most part, the books that are lendable are also cheap. I looked for a few favorite authors: Patricia Briggs, Ilona Andrews, John Levitt. Not lendable. Then I tried some authors that I've been wanting to "try" because I'm not sure I'll like them: Rachel Aaron, Patricia Wentworth, Brent Weeks. Nope, can't try them via lending.
This is where the publishers miss out, possibly even worse than library lending. Like a lot of people, I like to try new authors, but at 8 or 9 dollars a pop, I can't try very many. I can buy used or I can do 4 for 3 (which may or may not be cheaper than used). Ideally, I could buy these authors on impulse if the books were a little cheaper, if there was 4 for 3 in Kindle downloading or if I could borrow the first in the series to see if I liked the author. But none of these avenues are available to me so for now they sit in the wishlist. If the past is any prediction of the future, several of these books will remain untried just due to the high prices. I can't buy all the books that I'd like to read.
None of these authors are in Amazon's attempt at lending either (Prime program.) For lending programs to work and for people to be willing to pay for a lending service, there has to be more books available. Netflix doesn't make money because they only offer 10 percent of the movies available. They are able to offer a service because they have a huge choice. I think Amazon knows this, but the publishers don't want to embrace any kind of lending model. And that's silly. There's money to be had there for the right kind of program.