[image error]Last week I had an interesting experience. I ran across the site LendInk and discovered that many of my book titles were being offered for lending, which was curious because I never gave them explicit permission to list my books.

After checking with a few authors, I learned that they were struggling with the same issue—namely who are these guys and why are they lending out my books? Immediately I sent the owner of the site an email, asking him to take down my titles. Then I waited. Nothing happened.

In the meantime I contacted Amazon and asked them if they were affiliated with this site. I also asked about their eBook lending policy. They assured me that they were not in business with LendInk. A few days later I discovered that the site had been suspended. As of this writing, it’s still down but not suspended.

Now here’s the really interesting part. I did more research and learned that there are other book lending sites out there. Here are three of them:

Lendle

BookLending.com

eBookFling

It appears that all of these sites are acting as exchanges. Their purpose is to hook up book lenders with book borrowers. They do not charge a fee for this service. They only make money if a potential borrower is unable to find a title in the lending library and clicks on a link to purchase the item from either Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Lendle

This is from their terms. Note that they are lawyered up pretty good.

Lendle.me users shall indemnify, defend and hold harmless isdlab, llc, its officers, directors, employees, partners, associates, affiliates, joint ventures, agents and representatives, from any and all claims based on allegations which, if true, would constitute a breach of any of the foregoing warranties. The indemnity shall apply to any and all liabilities, losses, damages, expenses (including attorneys’ fees and costs) and damages incurred by isdlab, llc as a result of such breach or breaches. isdlab, llc reserves the right, at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to the foregoing indemnification, without affecting user’s indemnity obligations.

Lendle provides a nice Amazon bookmarklet. They also have an ASIN Bulk Importer on their Tools page, presumably so owners—or authors—can easily upload their titles.

BookLending.com

Now take a look at this from their FAQ.

What is BookLending.com?

BookLending.com is a website that matches lenders and borrowers of Kindle ebooks. To participate in lending and borrowing Kindle books, you must first register as a user on the site or connect with Facebook Connect.

It would be interesting to see how effective the Facebook tie-in is compared to other social media.

eBookFling

Apparently this is the newest entrant in this space. This is from their home page.

With eBookFling, swap unlimited ebooks with thousands of readers nationwide. Just fling an eBook to others and catch the eBook of your choice – choose from the hottest New York Times Bestsellers, timeless classics and even rare, eclectic titles, textbooks and tech manuals!

I’m not sure why that warrants an exclamation point but whatever.

Who’s Making Money Here Anyway?

As of this writing, these sites are all in business. I learned that you must register in order to find books on Lendle and eBookFling. However I was able to find my book titles on BookLending.com. I haven’t contacted any of them yet because I am trying to understand how the model works. Both BookLending.com and eBookFling are Amazon Associates. Does this give them the right to lend my books? Again, I believe the operative word is exchange.

The entire book lending situation is confusing. As a refresher, when you publish a book on Amazon, you have the option to allow lending if you accept the 35% royalty. However if you accept the 70% royalty, you don’t have a choice—you must permit lending.

Per Amazon’s terms, lending means that a single purchaser of your book can lend their book once for a period of fourteen days. You can learn more about the terms and conditions here. I believe that similar terms apply to Barnes and Noble.

As built, these sites are using a business model that doesn’t appear to be sustainable. Once a book is lent, it goes off the list for that particular owner. In the case of books like The Hunger Games trilogy, that’s probably okay because lots of people have purchased those books and could fill the library. Check out the WSJ article “E-Book Lending Takes Off.” I was particularly struck by this:

The lending sites have drawbacks. One is limited selection. Most major book publishers haven’t made their e-books lendable, and the books can be lent only once and for only 14 days. That means that with every successful loan, the sites’ available library shrinks unless new users with books to lend join.

What’s Next?

If you’re interested, check out “The difference between lending, borrowing and pirates” on Bob Mayer’s Blog for a different take on eBook lending. Here’s an excerpt:

So are these sites bad? It’s a gray area, but one that can actually help the author. Consider this. Your book, your name, your brand…is listed on a site readers hang out. They are not selling your book illegally, they are simply lending the book for a short period of time to another user. This is readers’ talking to readers’ and well, readers rule.

Like I said, not sustainable. I suspect that what these sites are really doing is testing the model and, perhaps, even hoping to influence its evolution so it will become more favorable to eBook lending sites in terms of revenue generation.

Last week’s experience has left me a bit disheartened. The net of it is this—each time one of my books is lent, I might get a royalty payment from the lending fund. Is that cool with other authors out there? Maybe the problem is with Amazon and Barnes and Noble for offering such a program in the first place. Let me know your thoughts.

Related articles

Legitimate ebook lending site LendInk taken down by hundreds of C&D orders (digitalmediamachine.com)
The Best Websites for Finding, Downloading, Borrowing, Renting, and Purchasing eBooks (howtogeek.com)
Internet Archive’s Peter Brantley wants librarians to take a more active role in the digital transition (feldmanfile.blogspot.com)