Saturday, November 5, 2011

     A few weeks ago, I subscribed to "Library Link of the Day"and today's excerpt came from the "Washington Post and Business Technology". It stated that Amazon.com on Thursday, November 3, 2011, is starting a lending library for Kindle owners that will allow them to borrow one electronic book per month. Here's the catch-borrowers have to subscribe to Amazon's Prime service which supplies free two-day shipping and streaming movies for $79.00 per year. This library, according to Amazon, has more than 5000 books, that includes bestsellers.
     The six biggest publishers-Random House, HarperCollins, Penguin, MacMillan, Simon & Schuster and Hachette are not participating as they have battled with Amazon over whether the publisher or Amazon gets to set the retail price of the books.
     According to Amazon, it is paying the participating publishers for the right to lend the books for a fixed price.It is paying the wholesale price every time a book is lent out in some cases.
     However, the books cannot be read on phones, PCs or tablet computers, despite the fact that there are Kindle apps for the mentioned devices.
     Oh, and I almost forgot-Kindle users got access to electronic books from public libraries. Those CAN be read in the Kindle apps.

     I am not sure what to think of this as it seems like Amazon is going out its original role as a bookseller.
     Bye for now!

Knowledge is free at the library. Just bring your own container.- Unknown