On ebooks and lending

Hardcover and paperback books are really easy to lend. You give it to your spouse, send it to school with your child to go home to another kid's parent, you bring it with you to a Brownie meeting to hand off to another mom. Really straightforward and simple and you hope that the book comes home in the same condition you loaned it.

What about loaning your ebooks? Well, Barnes & Noble nook has had this functionality for quite some time and not too long ago, Amazon made lending between Kindles a reality.

If the people local to you have the same ereader and share your reading tastes, you're good but what if the people you know play for the other team? DRM rears its ugly head and smacks you down, that's what.

I got to thinking the other day, after reading a plea on the Kindle discussion board for a loan, "Ebook readers need the equivalent of a community bulletin board where they can tack up a virtual index card saying what books they are willing to loan out and what books they would like to borrow."

Yesterday I learned that there already exists such a mechanism: Lendle. You can register to be a Lendler for free or you can opt to be a Patron for a life-time membership donation of $25. Lendlers earn 50¢ per book they lend out; patrons earn $1.00 per lend. You earn more requests by putting books on your lendable shelf and by actually lending books to other Lendlers. Nothing is loaned out initially or automatically - it's sort of like maintaining a Goodreads book shelf but with lending enabled.

To request a book, you search the title and join the wait queue. To respond to a request, you loan the book from your Manage My Kindle page. Very simple.

I loaded up about 160 or so Kindle books which I am willing to lend which means I earned 70 request privileges. I applied two of them to next installments of serials I like and have the rest in reserve. The virtual TBR pile is groaning!

Four or five requests to borrow books arrived and I responded to all of them. This is a fast-moving community, though: I was beaten to the lend on all but one of them! no matter, one person is going to read a book I loaned out and that's pretty cool.

One thing potential Lendlers must note: this is only a mechanism for matching up someone who has a copy of the book and someone who wants to read it. Both parties are still bound to the DRM and lending rights established by Amazon and/or the publisher: one two-week lend per book. Lendlers also need to respect Lendle's terms of service and not request a second loan of a book. If you liked it enough to want to read it a second time, buy it.

Just to keep things fun and interesting, Lendle has a list of achievements you can earn: signing up makes you a Lendler; paying up makes you a Patron; uploading a profile image earns you an Avatar badge; and Good Samaritan status has multiple levels. Oops, you tried to lend a book but got beaten out? Horsehoes and Hand Grenades for you! Are you waiting for someone to lend you a book? Right On Queue! You can come visit me and see all my awesome Lendle achievements, if you like.

According to the FAQs, all purchase links from Lendle are Amazon Associate links. They have to make enough money to cover operations and I'm sure that the people running the show like eating, heat, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing, after all.

Want more information? Visit Lendle or the Lendle blog.