Kindle owners get lending library

Amazon today announced the launch of the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.

Kindle owners  with an Amazon Prime membership can now choose from thousands of books to borrow for free - including over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers - as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates.

"Owning a Kindle just got even better. Today, we're introducing a new Prime benefit built for Kindle: The Kindle Owners' Lending Library," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. "Prime Members now have exclusive access to a huge library of books to read on any Kindle device at no additional cost and with no due dates."

The Kindle Owners' Lending Library offers access to a wide array of categories and genres in fiction and non-fiction. Readers will be able to save notes, highlights and bookmarks in borrowed books and have them available later if they buy the book or borrow it again.

For the vast majority of titles, Amazon has reached agreement with publishers to include titles for a fixed fee. In some cases, Amazon is purchasing a title each time it is borrowed by a reader under standard wholesale terms as a no-risk trial to demonstrate to publishers the incremental growth and revenue opportunity that this new service presents.