[Hannah Posts: 246 Status: Offline WWW]

Valeriek, I wouldn't actually be all that surprised if they were willing to do something weird, just because that's what they did with Kindle at the beginning--they sold it at a loss just so that they could create a niche market, and it worked. So you never know.

[CaroleB]

        I could be wrong, but I think libraries can buy multiple use licenses for eBooks and lend them simultaneously which, of course, means more than one person can have access to the same book. What that costs and how they determine which ones to purchase is beyond me.

            This is all very interesting, eh? 

[Whizbee Posts: 265 Status: Offline WWW]

        I could be wrong, but I think libraries can buy multiple use licenses for eBooks and lend them simultaneously which, of course, means more than one person can have access to the same book.

Yes, they can. But that's a different situation from Amazon's lending library, which is its own sort of online library.

[CaroleB]

        Oops, my bad. Thought library lending was mentioned, too.

[Hannah Posts: 246 Status: Offline WWW]

News! http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/01/ebooks/amazons-kindle-lending-library-zooms-past-75000-titles-authors-earn-1-70-per-borrow/

Really intriguing, but I guess it doesn't help anyone with a big name publisher? Anyone know more about this?

[Whizbee Posts: 265 Status: Offline WWW]

$1.70 per borrow sounds nice to me. I still don't understand why major publishers aren't on board with this. Would have been nice if the article had mentioned something about that.

[TexasGirl Posts: 585 Status: Offline Loving the writing life! WWW]

From what I understand, that amount of money was only for the Kindle Direct Publishing Select members. If big publishers participated, they were paid for borrows on a different scale, negotiated directly. There are about 500 traditional books (or were, when it started, involved.) And many thousands of KDP books.

[Whizbee Posts: 265 Status: Offline WWW]

From what I understand, that amount of money was only for the Kindle Direct Publishing Select members. If big publishers participated, they were paid for borrows on a different scale, negotiated directly. There are about 500 traditional books (or were, when it started, involved.) And many thousands of KDP books.

So maybe those negotiations weren't as good as the major houses were hoping for?

[TexasGirl Posts: 585 Status: Offline Loving the writing life! WWW]

Well, I know that Amazon included some big books without anyone's permission and "notified" the publisher the night before the promotion went out. They justified this since the borrows were going to count the same and pay the same as a sale. So it was really Amazon's choice which traditional books were included.

Smashwords says 6000 self published authors pulled their titles from other retailers via their site to go exclusive for Amazon for this deal.

I didn't do it. My MG book has been in the top 50 downloads for 9-12 year olds for three weeks now at Barnes & Noble, and I'm glad I'm not exclusive to Amazon, where it has sold all of 2 copies in the same period.

But several people whose sales were really low hit the jackpot, getting six and seven thousand dollar checks for borrows in December alone. Success stories are everywhere.

[Amanda Coppedge Posts: 420 Status: Offline WWW]

One of my volunteers who always asks me for YA book recommendations today limited it to "for the Kindle."

He told me his two new favorite books are "Psion Beta" and "The Soulkeepers" which look like they are two promoted self-pubbed (? I could be wrong) titles on Kindle Select.

He loves the Kindle Fire he got for Christmas.

View from a librarian's desk ...