Kindle Library Lending Requirements

I mentioned last week that I had contacted Amazon regarding the requirements for inclusion in its Kindle library lending program, and that they had passed me on to OverDrive, their distribution partner, and the leading digital content service for libraries. Today I received their response, which included a link to a pdf brochure entitled "Intro to Digital Distribution" that lays out some very basic guidelines and provides a set of resources for various ebook creation/conversion services and news sources (at least two of which have incorrect hyperlinks). The email also contained the following statement:

As a smaller publisher to qualify for review of your account application you must offer a minimum of 20 unique titles by 5 authors. We do not review manuscripts and accept only market ready, professionally acquired, edited and packaged eBooks. We will evaluate self-published authors for individual accounts if the writer has been credibly published, the title(s) have registered credible sales ranking at leading retailers, and the title/author has received favorable reviews.

If you meet these minimum requirements you must complete an online application located at:

https://secure.contentreserve.com/publisherapplication.asp and wait for your petition to be reviewed.


No mention was made of author/publisher compensation, nor are any financial terms laid out in the above application. The only mention of monetary compensation was this bit on the OverDrive publisher info page:

Once a publisher has been approved and has accepted the Content Reserve Distribution and Publisher Service Account Agreement and fee structure, the publisher is granted access to Content Reserve via private login ID and password. OverDrive works with the publisher to confirm a wholesale discount (Distributor Cost) that will be used to determine the amount the publisher is paid for each digital product sold.

How author shares are paid out is very likely left up to the publisher to work out with the author's agent, and would be contained within the digital distribution section of the author's contract.


So essentially this means that few, if any, self-published authors are currently included in the Kindle library lending program, or likely to be anytime soon. With two of the big six publishers still withholding their catalogs from library lending (Macmillan and Simon & Schuster), as well as HarperCollins' 26-loan limitation on its titles, even many of the major authors are still unavailable to digital libraries. This will all change one day, but for now just write it off to growing pains.