With an Amazon Prime membership, Kindle owners can now choose from
thousands of books to borrow for free - including over 100 current and
former New York Times Bestsellers - as frequently as a book a month,
with no due dates
Books can be borrowed and read on all Kindle E Ink devices and Kindle
Fire
SEATTLE, Nov 02, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
Today, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced the launch of the Kindle
Owners' Lending Library. With an Amazon Prime membership, Kindle owners
can now choose from thousands of books to borrow for free - including
over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers - as
frequently as a book a month, with no due dates. No other e-reader or
ebookstore offers such a service. With an annual Prime membership, the
Kindle Owners' Lending Library is included at no additional cost.
Millions of Prime members enjoy free two-day shipping, unlimited
streaming of nearly 13,000 movies and TV shows, and now thousands of
books to borrow for free with a Kindle.
"Owning a Kindle just got even better. Today, we're introducing a new
Prime benefit built for Kindle: The Kindle Owners' Lending Library,"
said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. "Prime Members now have
exclusive access to a huge library of books to read on any Kindle device
at no additional cost and with no due dates."
The Kindle Owners' Lending Library offers access to a wide array of
categories and genres in fiction and non-fiction, and includes popular
titles such as Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, The Big
Short and Liars' Poker by Michael Lewis, TheHunger
Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, and Water for Elephants by
Sara Gruen --plus award-winning books such as The Finkler Question
and Guns, Germs, and Steel, memoirs such as Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen
Confidential, and motivational books like The 7 Habits of
Highly Effective People. Just as with any other Kindle book, your
notes, highlights and bookmarks in borrowed books will be saved, so
you'll have them later if you purchase or re-borrow the book. Books are
borrowed from a Kindle device, and customers can have one book out at a
time. When customers want to borrow a new book, any borrowed book can
easily be returned right from their device.
Titles in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library come from a range of
publishers under a variety of terms. For the vast majority of titles,
Amazon has reached agreement with publishers to include titles for a
fixed fee. In some cases, Amazon is purchasing a title each time it is
borrowed by a reader under standard wholesale terms as a no-risk trial
to demonstrate to publishers the incremental growth and revenue
opportunity that this new service presents.
"The Kindle Owners' Lending Library is a great new benefit for Kindle
owners and an entirely new growth opportunity for authors and
publishers," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content.
"With the growth in Prime membership and the recent addition of Prime
Instant Video, we've been able to broaden our relationships with movie
and TV studios such as CBS, Fox, and NBCUniversal and significantly
increase their revenue. We're excited to expand that investment to books
- with this launch, we expect three immediate results: Kindle owners
will read even more, publisher revenues will grow, and authors will see
larger royalty checks."
"We're excited to offer titles from our ebook 'Chapters' series, which
covers some of the world's most popular destinations, to members of
Kindle Owners' Lending Library," says John Boris, EVP Lonely Planet.
"Our ebooks have done incredibly well on Kindle and this is a great way
to showcase our travel expertise to an even broader audience."
"We're excited about any program that helps readers discover our authors
and their books," said David Nussbaum, Chief Executive and Chairman of
F+W Media Inc. "We think this will lead to more people reading F+W's
books, and more profit for our authors."
To learn more about the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, visit www.amazon.com/kindleownerslendinglibrary.
To learn about all of the additional benefits included with Amazon
Prime, or to start an Amazon Prime free trial visit www.amazon.com/prime.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle,
opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's
Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most
customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything
they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the
lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of
unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books;
Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home
& Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health &
Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web
Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to
in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end
technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any
type of business. The new latest generation Kindle is the lightest, most
compact Kindle ever and features the same 6-inch, most advanced
electronic ink display that reads like real paper even in bright
sunlight. Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an
easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages,
search, shop, and take notes - still with all the benefits of the most
advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch 3G is the top of the line
e-reader and offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch,
with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle Fire is the
Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games and
web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud,
Whispersync, Amazon Silk (Amazon's new revolutionary cloud-accelerated
web browser), vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core
processor.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com,
www.amazon.co.uk,
www.amazon.de,
www.amazon.co.jp,
www.amazon.fr,
www.amazon.ca,
www.amazon.cn,
www.amazon.it,
and www.amazon.es.
As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include
Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates
otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning
of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly
from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve
risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to
competition, management of growth, new products, services and
technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international
expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center
optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and
strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption,
inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More
information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's
financial results is included in Amazon.com's
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most
recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.
SOURCE: Amazon.com, Inc.
Amazon.com, Inc.
Media Hotline, 206-266-7180
www.amazon.com/pr
