Lendle is one of the more popular ebook clubs, where users who purchase Kindle books can lend them to one another. Certain ebooks you purchase are flagged “Lending Enabled” by the publisher or author, and can be loaned out once during the book’s lifetime. Lendle announced today the cancellation of the Pay to Lend feature, which gave Amazon giftcards to the people who loaned the most books.
The founders of Lendle cited that “Amazon gift card purchases became our highest expense each month, draining revenue that we felt could be better used to beef up our servers and improve website performance for site users. And so we have made the difficult decision to end the Pay to Lend program, freeing Lendle up to continue to invest the resources that will ensure that it is the easiest, fastest, fairest, and best way to lend and borrow Kindle books.”
So it looks like the Pay to Lend feature, which was originally introduced in early 2011, is no more! Patrons will no longer be able to get Amazon gift cards to buy new ebooks by participating in the Lendle ebook program.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
