Amazon Kindle Lending Library provides access to over 100,000 titles

PanARMENIAN.Net - Starting with just 5,000 titles during early November 2011, Amazon announced that the Lending Library service on the Kindle now provides access to over 100,000 titles, according to Digital Trends.

The number of available titles skyrocketed during December when Amazon opened up the program to self-published books within the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program. Authors that self-publish books through KDP can earn up to a 70 percent royalty on sales of their works.

In addition, Amazon management claims to have distributed approximately $1.8 million in royalties to authors since the inception of the program. Kindle owners taking advantage of the Lending Library service have borrowed more than a million self-published titles since December. For authors, exposure within the Lending Library service can encourage increased sales of other books within their portfolio.

Announced during April 2011, Amazon added support for public libraries to lend out Kindle titles and libraries across the United States have rapidly adopted the service. Amazon has partnered with Overdrive to accomplish this feat, a provider of 650,000 ebook and audio book titles offered within 18,000 libraries, schools, and colleges across the globe.

Amazon also includes the ability to marks notes, highlights and the last page read in borrowed titles. If the user decides to purchase the book or borrow it again in the future, all previously created annotations will remain within the book.