Kindle Users: Go Forth And Loan

Back in October, we heard from Amazon that Kindle users (on all platforms) would soon be able to lend their books to each other. It was one of the features the Kindle lacked that Barnes & Noble really liked to shove in consumers’ faces, but as of today that’s no longer a problem. The loan program is now live, and the process looks pretty simple.

All you do is go to the book management screen and click the “Loan this book” button. You can send it to anyone at all, since the Kindle app is cross-platform, and the recipient has seven days to accept. The total loan period lasts 14 days, so after that’s expired, it comes back to you, or the person who has it can return it at any time.

There are a few rules, of course: you can only lend books to users in the US, and not all books can be loaned.

On a side note, Amazon should work on the lend/loan thing. I mean, the grammarians of the day (such as they are) seem to consider them interchangeable, but traditionally lend is the verb and loan is the noun. So books are lendable, but the button says loan this book? Anyway. They’ll work it out.