OverDrive announced on its blog Wednesday that Kindle availability for Penguin eBooks already in library catalogs “has been restored as of this morning. Penguin titles are available for check out by Kindle users and the Kindle format will be available for patrons who are currently on a waiting list for a Penguin title. This does not affect new releases, which remain unavailable.” They added, “At this time, no further information is available. We hope to share more details in the near future.” Separately, Early Word asked Random House about their current view on library ebook lending, and received this tepid […]
Libraries
Authors Guild Says Kindle Lending Library Is “Outside the Bounds of the Publisher’s Authority”
In a strongly worded memo issued Monday afternoon, the Authors Guild took issue with Amazon’s Kindle Lending Library for Prime customers, in particular those titles available without express permission from publishers and authors. “How can Amazon get away with this? By giving its boilerplate contract with these publishers a tortured reading,” the Guild said, adding that permission appeared to be dispensed with “because, as Amazon apparently sees it, its contracts with these publishers merely require it to pay publishers the wholesale price of the books that Amazon Prime customers download.” The reasoning is “nonsense”, from the AG’s understanding of Amazon’s […]
eNews: Amazon Augmented Reality App; La Vanguardia’s New eBookstore; and More
Though Amazon’s ebook lending service for Prime members is the big story for the day, they also launched another service (through subsidiary A9.com) worth remarking upon. Flow Powered by Amazon is a free augmented reality iPhone app that, when pointed in the direction of any good with a UPC barcode (like video games, DVDs and books) will display Amazon product information, including the option to play multimedia content and read customer reviews. Release La Vanguardia, Spain’s 4th largest newspaper (and the top newspaper in Barcelona, where most of Spanish book publishing is located) announced on Wednesday that it is launching […]
Amazon Launches Prime eBooks Benefit Plan, Now Called Kindle Owners’ Lending Library
As we reported in September, after months of trying to enlist publisher participation in an ebook library for Amazon Prime members, the etailer has launched that initiative with a modest base of about 5,000 titles. Called Kindle Owners Lending Library, it makes available selected, mostly backlist titles, with promoted books coming from publishers including Scholastic, Norton, Bloomsbury, Grove/Atlantic, Workman/Algonquin, F+W Media, Lonely Planet, and Amazon’s own publishing imprints. Rosetta Books tells the WSJ they alone are contributing about 200 titles. None of the six largest publishers are participating (and when we discussed it with them in September, none of the companies […]
eNews: Kobo Pairs with Fnac in France; BlueFire Goes International; and More
Kobo has announced their next international ebook alliance, with France’s top bookselling chain Fnac. Set to launch “within the fourth quarter” of this year both online and in 81 Fnac stores, the bookseller has committed to having “ereading experts on hand to give personalized in-store demonstrations,” taking a cue from Barnes & Noble’s Nook boutiques. They promise “the largest catalog of ebooks in France” without specifying a number of titles on a platform that will be called “Kobo by Fnac.” (Amazon launched their Kindle store last week with about 35,000 titles in French. This time a year ago, Fnac said […]
A Small Kindle Lending Update
Further to yesterday’s story, we caught up with OverDrive ceo Steve Potash. While the implementation of Kindle lending to all of the over 11,000 public and school library systems served by OverDrive in the US was “still ongoing” yesterday afternoon, Potash said they were activating more systems every hour. He expected they would complete the task by late Thursday or sometime Friday, and noted that all systems had notices that either said they were live or that the service was coming soon. As to the questions about privacy, Potash conceded that the Kindle lending is an opt-in service where patrons […]