3 ms·
No surprise here. I made a site last year that did almost the same thing as LendInk, but I decided to shut it down after Amazon made it very clear that they di
by bhousel 14y ago
No surprise here. I made a site last year that did almost the same thing as LendInk, but I decided to shut it down after Amazon made it very clear that they didn't want me doing that.
From what I understand, there were a half dozen or so other sites that would facilitate ebook lending, and we were all pressured by Amazon similarly. Most of those sites are no longer around.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- corin_ 14y agoIf you read the article you'd see that this site was not shut down because of Amazon at all.
- bhousel 14y agoYes, I know that Amazon didn't shut them down, a bunch of C&D letters from authors did. My only point was that Amazon does not support people who run these ebook lending sites, and I don't think there's much of a future in it.
- pseudonym 14y agoOf course Amazon doesn't support it-- they, like the C&Ding authors, subscribe to the kool-aid of "everyone that was lending these books would have been a sale".
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Turing_Machine 14y agoNot only do they support it, they actually pay a higher royalty rate to authors who enable lending (making the book lendable is one of the requirements for the 70% royalty tier). If you make the book an Amazon exclusive, you even get paid something when the book is lent (at least for the period of exclusivity).
- periferral 14y agoJust to be clear, LendInk facilitated lending through Amazon, not a service they were providing. They were simply matching users who had the same reading interest. I doubt Amazon pressured them into shutting down considering LendInk is sending business their way.
- jonhendry 14y agoUm, the whole point of LendInk is to not send business their way. Business would imply purchasing. LendInk is a way to avoid purchasing.
- sp332 14y agoLendInk used Amazon's affiliate program. That means (up until Amazon dropped all California affiliates) Amazon would send a percentage of all sales made by that visitor over the next 24 hours to LendInk, as a "thank-you" for sending them traffic.