The writing world has been atwitter with Amazon’s latest offering: the KDP lending library, where authors can sign up to have their books lent to Amazon Prime members for free.

 

At first glance, the service looks pretty awesome for everyone involved. Amazon set aside a pot of $500,000 for December alone, and the participating author is given a cut of that depending on how often his or her book is borrowed. You get access to the Amazon Prime readers, most of whom have Kindles, and it’s pretty easy to assume that the program will give you some kick-ass exposure. I mean look at the email they sent:

 

KDP Select gives you access to a whole new source of royalties and readers- you not only benefit from a new way of making money, but you also get the chance to reach even more readers by getting your book in front of a growing number of US Amazon Prime customers: readers and future fans of your books that you may have not had a chance to reach before! Additionally, the ability to offer your book for free will help expand your worldwide reader base.

 

“Hells to the yessah,” you think. They even make it insanely easy for an indie author to enroll their book – or all of them – by offering a handy dandy little “Enroll” button right next to their book title. I mean, it couldn’t be simpler.

 

 

…but, er, check out the fine print, which you can’t even find unless you go to the “learn more” link listed in the email:

 

“When you choose KDP Select for a book, you’re committing to make the digital format of that book available exclusively through KDP. During the period of exclusivity, you cannot distribute your book digitally anywhere else, including on your website, blogs, etc. However, you can continue to distribute your book in physical format, or in any format other than digital. See the KDP Select Terms and Conditions for more information.”

 

Yep, that’s thrown in at the end and hidden in the FAQs, as if it were a secondhand thought and not a crippling way to limit where and to whom an author can sell their books. It’s like Amazon saying, “oh yeah, and by the way, we also get to strangle your distribution networks with a rubber hose.”

 

“It’s like any episode of the Simpsons. Ever.”

 

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Update: a commenter made a good point that you still have full rights to sell your print books anywhere. However, it’s important to remember that print editions sell less than eBooks. In fact, eBooks outsold paperbacks and hardcovers combined last year on Amazon.

 

I don’t think Amazon cares that much about print editions, especially when it comes to indie authors. I mean, the advent of the eReader and the eBook was what MADE self-publishing a lucrative option when, in the past, self-publishing was where authors went to give up. Thanks to eBooks and the distribution channels available (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and even the authors’ own sites), self-publishing is becoming a growing and successful option for authors. Paper formats are likely going to become a small, niche market if these trends continue as they have.

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Smashwords, a website that lets independent authors sell their books for the best royalties in the industry, dedicated a hefty chunk of research and a lot of time to create a response to Amazon’s KDP site. True, Amazon is a competitor and the KDP lending library is threatening to take away the authors who would otherwise add titles to their library, but I think that Smashwords has done a good job of analyzing the cons of the lending library program. Give it a read.

 

The basic problem with Amazon’s lending library is that the book cannot be sold anywhere but on Amazon’s site: not Barnes & Noble, not Smashwords, and not even your own blog. It’s exclusive to Amazon in every sense of the word, and you risk your percentage of the pot if you violate that.

 

That means that you cannot sell ePub files. At all. If you don’t care about that, then you just alienated everyone who owns a Nook. Like me.

 

The most successful way of selling a book – or anything really – is that you have to make it easy to buy. I, for instance, am not going to download the kindle app and read a book on my computer, and I’m not going to use Calibre to convert the MOBI file to an ePub. I want to go to the Barnes & Noble site and have the book delivered wirelessly to my Nook, so that I can read it whenever I want. It’s simple, it’s easy, and I don’t have to think about it. I only buy about 5% of my books from Smashwords – and the rest come from Barnes & Noble.

 

That’s the problem with the exclusivity in the KDP option: the author loses their distribution power. Laura E. Bradford, a great author and friend, heard about the lending service and has a great idea: Amazon should offer an option for authors to join the lending library in a non-exclusive manner for a lesser cut of the pie. Thing is, I don’t think that’s what Amazon wants…they want the most exclusive content so that people buy their Kindles. I just don’t think that’s a wise move for authors.

 

Readers and writers alike: what do you think about Amazon’s new lending library program?

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