10-24-200909:47 PM- last edited on10-24-200910:00 PM
Thanks Kevin for a direct answer, at least we have that. I think BN should really reconsider the limit on lending. As it stands you may as well not even have it. This alleged feature fails because it in no way mimics an actual book which I can lend repeatedly at will in perpetuity.
I don't see this as being a feature that will be of very much use to consumers, though I bet it will be a boon to publishers and BN since many people take longer than 14 days to read a book, anyone who doesn't finish will be likely to buy the book. Probably the true purpose of the "feature".
I'm belive you truly do want to meet consumers in-the-middle, so to speak, I'm not saying you have to provide the kind of lending flexibility you have with a real book, but what you shouid offer, at the very least, is the next best thing.
Features should provide real value to the user and not only be gimicks to sell more books, it is OK if it does sell more books, just so long as there is real value in it for the consumer. In this case, I'd say there isn't. In order to provide real value a minimum of 30 days lending per person, per book, with 30 days between lending per book is reasonable.
My reasoning is simple and fair to both the consumer and the industry: If you can't read the book in 30 days then you either aren't interested in the book or should probably buy your own copy anyway. The delay is warranted since without a delay between lending ( or perhaps even with ) you'll probably see websites spring up with a miniture lending 'market', probably not for profit, but still, it isn't fair to ask BN to lose sales to a free lending exploitation system.
I think as it stands it will make me cringe every time I hear an advertisement tout the feature, when I know it is only a gimmick, not a true feature, but BN can do something about it and I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and wait and see if you do.
Yes, it is true. The admins (Kevin, in particular), have commented on this: you can only lend a particular ebook once, for 14 days. Note that the person you lend it to can choose not to accept the ebook you lend them, in which case you would be able to lend it to someone else. But if they do accept the ebook you lend them, that's it. They'll get it for 14 days, and then the ebook will revert back to you, and you won't be able to lend it out again.
There's an article (linked from the Wikipedia page for the nook) on consumerist.com that says that the lending function will allow only ONE lend per book. So, while I can lend a book (a very cool feature, BTW), I would have to choose very wisely, because I cannot lend more than once.
I couldn't find any official statement in these forums on that. Is this true?
This is bad, bad news. The lending feature was never that important to me. But if B&N is overselling this feature, what else are they hiding? I feel betrayed. The main advantage Nook has over competitors is its support of open formats, but if the rest of the Nook's open promise ends up being just as misleading... This news is seriously pushing me in the Kindle direction. I'm definitely not pre ordering and we'll see how things go in December.
I must say I was very excited when I first read about the nook.
Now, not so much.
And the severely limited 'lend' feature is a major reason. False advertising if you ask me...
When they come out with an e-book where I actually own the 'books' I pay my hard earned money for, to sell or give away or loan out, as I see fit...Then let me know.
There is a good chance I would've upgraded from my Sony 505 to the Nook if the sharing feature was never mentioned. I've been waiting for a good PDF reader. Sony reads it okay...but it's not very good at it, but it still gets by. But it is good to carry around PDF docs of various materials that I have which are huge... And companies like Pragmatic which sell their books using PDF/ePub/mobi ALL in one package, I gladly pay for every time. I still order my non-reference pbooks from Amazon. I buy enough that it makes my Amazon prime membership totally worth it. I thought Nook would replace it. But I feel that the initial impression of this lending feature that they put out at the market is disingenuous and it has turned me off to this reader.
I'm sure the color screen on the Nook will help it get some new users to eBook readers in general. But the main selling point of the Nook was that it had this sharing feature. It wasn't the color screen that was getting the most attention in the blogs. It wasn't the UI or the look of the unit either. It was the sharing feature. Finally, an eBook reader won't be relegated to some technical PDFs that I have! I can share books with people I know just like a real book! It sounded good enough for me to pre-order. Part of the fun of reading new books is to let others know about it...so they can read it too. Lot of my friends were very excited about it. Then the reality hit, and it was a big let down. Not only that, in my opinion, Barnes and Noble's marketing of that feature is disingenuous and misleading. Read the articles about Nook and the gadget sites...and even the Consumerist! It's full of people surprised and let-down by the real description of this feature. It's too bad.
Luckily, there are LOT of eBook manufacturers. There are hungrier ones like Plastic Logic and even Sony that will take note. Apple was able to push back against the music industry, maybe they'll release something even better. And if anybody ever release something that mimics the pbooks better, I'll vote with my wallet then. Along with LOT of others that are waiting for that right product. For me, eBook readers are a "want" not a "need." I don't see any point of spending my money on something that's not ideal for me, to benefit the learning experience of the industry. I'll stick with pBooks for now.
But for others who are willing to invest their money and resources for the learning experience of this backward industry, thank you.
Clearly, B&N thought this thing through, but they didn't go the full distance. The model they need to emulate here is the physical book. They are, after all, a physical brick-and-mortar bookstore.
I suspect that the limiting factor is the distribution agreements with publishers. Getting them to agree to any form of digital lending was probably a major accomplishment.
I appreciate BN's willingness to work with publishers to change the one time lending policy. But what I don't understand is why is that our public library (in Champaign/Urbanb Illinois) is able to lend out ebooks multiple times to multiple people and BN is only allowing the one time/one person deal?
The library purchasing the book is the same process that we (your consumers) would purchase the book...
I am still on the fence about buying a nook this early in the game. Some of my concerns have been answered, but I am still not too keen on the price of BN ebooks and this lending policy.
10-23-200901:35 PM- last edited on10-23-200901:39 PM
I too am disappointed with this functionality. It sounds great. In fact, I was telling my wife all about the nook last night, and much of our discussion centered around the lend feature. I just know that if I go home tonight and tell her I can lend a book only once, she'll say "that's useless!".
Why? Because it is! As someone else mentioned here, the model we should be trying to emulate is NOT the kindle or Sony model. As cool as those are, those were first generation devices. Clearly, B&N thought this thing through, but they didn't go the full distance. The model they need to emulate here is the physical book. They are, after all, a physical brick-and-mortar bookstore.
I go into my local B&N and buy a sci-fi book and read it. I'm done with it. Unless it's a true classic and I just can't stand to be without it, I probably will never read it again. Unlike textbooks or technical books, I really don't need to keep a sci-fi book around forever. So what do I do with it? I give it to my friends. Or, lately, I've been giving it to the 12 year old son of a friend. He's just getting into sci-fi, loves reading, and his mom asked if I had any good suggestions. Now I give him a pile of paperbacks every few weeks.
Think of what this is doing for HIM! Maybe he's not buying those books right now, but he is setting a pattern of book reading. He doesn't know what he likes right now, so he may only buy one or two physical books a month. But he's getting a good feel for what he wants in the future. He will be buying far more books in the future too. He'll probably walk into his local B&N and buy more books in a couple of weeks, whereas he probably wouldn't if someone hadn't lent him a book or two. If he had an e-Reader, he probably would buy even more titles.
But without lending (or, in this case, giving them to him), it doesn't model real life. I want to be able to lend to different people over different times. Say I lend an eBook today, thinking no one else would want it, and then next month someone says "Oh, I LOVE that author! I am dying to read his new book!". I would be unable to lend it to that person.
(I actually would like to be able to give someone an eBook after I'm done with it, but I understand why B&N doesn't want that to happen. Lending however, is not the threat that they think it is...)
Personally, I think the lending feature should be improved. Limit the timeframe to seven days (after all, the intent is to get them hooked enough to go buy their own book), but increase the lending choices to unlimited. Ultimately, this can only HELP B&N, not hurt them.
As other options (not as good), B&N could limit the number of lends to a set number (say, 10?) or limit it to only one lend per week (month?) or something of that sort.
This isn't a deal killer for me, but it's a huge let down. This was such a cool feature, but it turns out to be a rotten egg in disguise. I agree with another poster that this is going to backfire on B&N because it is being marketed as one of the key aspects. Once the press really catches on to this, or once Amazon catches on, there will no end of embarassment at B&N.
For those who want to "vote with their wallets" and walk away from the table until the entire media industry concedes to your demands for a whole change in the understanding of intellectual property, so be it. I don't know what I can do to convince you, even though I consider this a poor strategy, IMO.
I prefer to vote with my behavior.
Why?
If we walk away from eReaders and eBooks as they are today, we're sending a message to publishers that the concept, in general, of those two things is a failure. (Nobody's buying it, it's a niche market, etc.) Publishers will not see any reason to innovate in that type of market. The great fear is that they will lose money.
So, my solution?
Buy the nook. Loan books. Encourage your lendees to buy books you've lent to them. The publishers will start to see the profit in it. We keep the pressure on to expand the feature.
For example, say I lend 4 different books. Of those my friend buys 1. There's a lot of factors here, but it's not unreasonable to assume that lending generates new sales up to 25%.
We ask for more--"Hey, let me lend multiple times"--and they decide to give it a try to see how it works. Maybe they offer this feature as a member benefit, who knows. So they up the # of times to, say 4. If the percentage of purchases stays constant (in the example, 25%) most publishers will wisely say OK, because though the percentage stays the same, the # of units sold (thus profit) increases.
So far so good. We keep saying, "I want to lend to more friends." So they up the number of times a book can be loaned to 10. But now, only 10% of those lendees end up buying the book. If you follow the logic, sooner or later with a little tinkering they will find the "right" number of loans to generate sales.
And sales is what it's all about.
Believe me, I would like to live in the utopia where all the content I want/need is free and accessible all the time. But we don't live there. So, viva la revolution and all, but I would rather take smaller, realistic, pragmatic measures for achieving my perfect world than sit back a refuse to play until someone makes me captain of the team.
Just my take on things. I know some of you strongly disagree.
While I agree that it is a bit dissapointing that you can't lend more than once per book, I can't lend AT ALL with Sony or Kindle, so to me it's still a better feature than other eReaders out there. And if publishers get on this, and other people start offering it too, then we may get more choices in the lending aspect. Just because it's once per book now doesn't mean it always has to be that way.
Hey, thanks, everyone for the feedback on lending.
Remember that this is a brand new feature that has never been done before. We're working with our publishing partners to make this the best experience possible. The one-time 14-day lend is what we have now, and we think it's a significant step.
First off, I appreciate that a clear answer was given for this question. I'm not as adamant about buying the nook anymore, and my friend who was hoping to make good use of the lending feature through me will not be buying the nook now. I hope that B&N's reconsiders this. Being able to only loan out a book once almost counts for nothing, and should not be advertised at all. People will be aggravated when they find out that detail.
Instead of just complaining, I'm hoping that the moderators or admins can forward my suggestion to the right people.
In order to make the lending process be less restrictive, why not make it so that a book that has been loaned out cannot be loaned out again until x amount of days? Of course, I'm thinking that it should be between 1 to 30 days but whatever number is fine as long as I can loan out the book again. If anything, this should entice more sales. As someone who sometimes can't stop reading a book until the wee hours of the morning, I can honestly say that if I my 14 days are up while I was at a good part of the book I would purchase the book right then and there instead of waiting for it be loaned to me again.
Example:
- I loan out Book A to Tom for 14 days.
- After 14 days, I get Book A back.
- Mary asks for Book A, but I can't loan it out again for x days so Mary ends up waiting x days.
Man...I wish I could cancel my order. I used whatever left over gift-cards (as presents, and from credit card points) I have to pre-order the Nook....and if I cancel, I have no clue what happens to the balace on the gift cards. What a pain...and all my bad.
I just hope this thing sells out so I can dump it on ebay and at least get back what I paid for it when it's released.
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Why don't people realize the social nature of books? It's like TV shows and movies...the word of mouth does wonders for its distribution. When I read a good book, I WANT to lend it to others so they'll enjoy it too. Some books I DO read more than once...so I insist on getting it back and have whoever borrowed it from me buy their own. What usually happens with lot of fiction books in series is that I'll lend them the first book in a series, and if whoever borrowed it likes it, they'll also go out and buy the subsequent books in that series. This has happened numerous times among my friends. Some of my friends have gone out and bought box sets after I lent them first books to a good series like the Foundation, Ender series, Hitchhiker, etc because they loved it so much.
And because we are constantly exchanging books, we as a group buy LOT MORE books....since it encourages us to read and look for new stuff. I honestly thought Nook would provide that same social aspects.
And unlike what some others have said in this forum, I do not believe in buying the Nook AND many ebooks on it so that I can somehow prove to the publisher that this model works. Why? When we vote with our wallets, it's not by giving them more money for something we don't like thinking that will convince them to give us what we want eventually...it's the opposite. Look at the history of Windows Mobile devices...and what happened after the iPhone was released. I really thought Nook could be the iPhone of eReader market. I guess not.
I really just don't understand why you can only loan it out once. Someone on another thread brought up the concept of us "owning" or being "licensed the right to read" the material. I don't see how it matters. When you loan it, you lose access to it until you receive it back. This is virtually the same concept as lending a real book, except that, yes, it doesn't wear out.
I'm assuming this is in place so that the the person you lend an eBook to will purchase it for him or herself. I don't see how that'll work out.
The ability to lend books was a huge selling point, but if you can only loan a book out once, and can NEVER loan it out again then this feature is kind of useless to me.
I was just waiting to hear back on this question. Now that I know the answer, and coupled with the higher prices of books than their competitor Amazon, I've decided to cancel my order.
Good luck to the people that decide to actually buy a Nook. I truly hope you enjoy your new ereader.
That answer pretty much lost me for good. It's not even a feature worth mentioning now. It's another reminder that when I buy ebooks, I do not own them, and I do not have freedom to do as I wish with it. I thought Nook would be an improvement...but it's not.
I should be able to lend the book to someone. I should be able to even SELL the book if I don't want it anymore. It should be equivalent to a paperback book. If B&N wants to limit it so that we don't start some crazy online book exchange club, I understand...make the lending/exchanges only possible in person even. If the industry as a whole wants to limit the number of transfers allowed (like around 10), I can give them some slack for that too, since I understand that things in digital format do not wear out like a real book. But for these publishers and vendors to keep on hitting us on the head that we do not own the book that we buy, we are not free to do anything with it...but we are buying a license to read the content....is disappointing.
This unit isn't smaller than its competitors...this unit does not have a better screen...it does not have revolutionary concept of you owning your own ebooks....so how is it better than what's out there other than the gimmicky UI?
I think the once per lendee, but for a shorter term, proposition would be fair all around.
This argument will be easier to make (especially to publishers) once the nook ships and they can see the actual (hopefully positive) impact lending has on their sales. This nice thing is this will all be highly trackable. (# of loans, # of borrowers who subsequently bought vs. didn't, etc.) Nice cold, hard data to show them that they will make money doing this. And that's what it will take, folks. Showing them they can turn a profit at it.
So let's all buy nooks, lend to friends, and remind them to buy their own copies. Then we will have the consumer/user power to put pressure on publishers to loosen up their restrictions.
