Kindle lending to launch in UK

Amazon has approached UK publishers ahead of the launch of its Kindle lending service. Although some have agreed to place their content into the scheme, the Society of Authors has questioned whether publishers can do this without first getting permission from authors.

Amazon’s e-Book lending service, Kindle Owners Lending Library, is due to be launch with around 200,000 titles in time for Christmas.

 in the UK at the end of the month and there are plans to include around 200,000 titles. Amazon Prime Members get to borrow one e-Book per month for free, and keep it for as long as they like—but they must return it before borrowing another. Kate Pool, deputy general secretary of the Society of Authors, said e-lending could  cheapen the perception of books, and said authors should be asked for their consent before being placed in such a scheme by their publisher.

In the US, the scheme also met with hostility from author groups who labeled it a "bold breach" of contracts. In the US, publishers not signed up to the deal were paid the wholesale price for each e-book loaned.

In the UK Bloomsbury, Oxford University Press, Icon Books and Michael O’Mara are among those with titles listed, along with a number of self-published writers. Other publishers have suggested that the remuneration of the wholesale price of a book every time one is leant out, coupled with poor promotional opportunities within the lending service, has meant there were few advantages to the scheme.