My CP and I discovered a cool feature over Christmas. You can lend your Kindle books to friends and family. So I thought I’d share some tips we discovered, some the hard way (see #4).
1. Not all Kindle books can be loaned out. To find out if the one you want to loan can be loaded out, look on its Amazon page and scroll down the Product Description. Next to ‘Lending,’ it needs to say ‘Enabled’.
2. You can only loan out the book ONCE. So save that special book for that special person. Of course, if you’re sending a book on how to be a better person to someone you consider to be a major jerk, loan away.
3. How many times have you lent a book to someone and never saw it again? *raises hand* Not a problem with the Kindle lending system. The person who borrows the book from you only gets it for FOURTEEN DAYS, before it vanishes from their Kindle or Kindle app. How cool is that?
4. DO NOT lend a book you are still reading, especially if it’s at a good part (like a very steamy make out scene). Like with a real book, when you loan it out, it’s no longer in your possession. You can’t open it on your Kindle until the loan period is over or the borrower sends it back to you. Wait until you’ve read the book BEFORE you loan it to your friend.
5. If you want to loan the book to a friend, check with them first to make sure they have time to read it now. Nothing is worse than getting to the climax and having the book vanished because your fourteen days is up.
Has anyone else tried the lending system through Kindle? Do you lend your books to friends and family (ebooks or hardcopies)?
* * *
I forgot to mention in my final Cool Links Post last week that The Adventures in YA & Children’s Publishing blog has brought back the popular weekly links post. It is now on Saturdays. They always have great links.
And because I can’t totally abandoned the great links I find, I will be tweeting them on Twitter during the week. You can find them at @StinaLL.