I only recently read about the shut down of the ebook lending site Lendink, following complaints from authors, seemingly mainly indie authors. It wasn’t just complaints, but legal threats against the hosting provider and the operator of the site, whose only crime was to allow ebook readers who wanted to use the lending feature of their devices connect with each other.
If that is enough to get a site shut down, then places like GoodReads should pay close attention to what has happened to LendInk. A vocal disaffected group of people can have far greater effect than is warranted, especially if they’ve failed to read their contracts properly in the first place.
It’s difficult enough to get readers, reviews, and awareness that I exist as an author without my fellow authors poisoning the common pot. I carefully read my contracts before I signed them and willingly added my books to the various lending programs that exist. I would also hazard a guess that more people have my books because I gave them away to people than have bought them.
I make sure that DRM-free copies are given away, so that people who want to share my work, can.
I strongly believe in a Right to Read (even if that link is a little bit extreme), and would be dismayed if my personal library of thousands of volumes could not be shared with others at my discretion, and would likewise be distraught if my rights as an author and rights holder were dismantled by the short-sighted, the greedy, and the close-minded.
Please, dear Reader, don’t let what happened to Lendink become the pattern for things to come for similar sites and services.