

Ask HN: Anyone Working on Amazon Kindle Loan Website - noahc

Does anyone know of anyone working on this?<p>It appears there will be some limitations, but once its clear that you can lend out a book to anyone for a 14 day period over and over again, I'd think something like this would pop up all over.  I'd be willing to pay $25.00 a month to read all the books I could, with that $25.00 going to buy more and more books in kindle format.
======
jonafato
My understanding of the kindle lending process currently is that we will only
be allowed to lend a book once[1]. Unless they say otherwise, this model would
not work. I do think that eventually this will be opened up to work like
actual book lending would though. Also, remember that publishers will be able
to specify whether or not books are lendable, so this may all be moot anyway.

[1] -
[http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_...](http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx1G2UIO9PJO50V&displayType=tagsDetail)

~~~
noahc
"lent once" as far as I can tell hasn't been defined as "lent once and only
once" or "lent once every 14 days"

Have you seen any clarification for this?

~~~
jonafato
If the Nook is any indication of how this will work (and judging by how the
game has been played with price drops / wifi versions so far, I think it is)
the lending will be "once and only once". The details for the Nook lending
feature are here:
[http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/container/standard_bothna...](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/container/standard_bothnavs.asp?PID=35677)
with the relevant answer under FAQ #2. Don't get me wrong; I think _some day_
we will get full lending abilities on these devices, but this will probably be
a baby step moment. Publishers probably think that if lending worked like real
books, no one would ever buy one, so they will prevent it for now.

------
mikecane
Even if they change it so people can, say, lend each book once a month, how
exactly would you set up this site? I don't think anyone would want to sit
there typing, for example, 100-200 book titles into a site ... for what
payback? To be able to borrow a book from someone else? As someone who does
eBooks, I can tell you that's a non-starter for me. Plus, do you understand
how many _free_ books are available for the Kindle? And I don't mean public
domain stuff, I mean just-published stuff from traditional publishers. I have
over 200 of them and don't even own a Kindle yet! [typo edit]

------
brockad
Have they changed the restrictions? When they first announced the service,
each book could only be lent once.

