Amazon is set to introduce and e-book lending service for the Kindle e-reader.
The e-books can be loaned for a period of 14 days and rather like physically lending someone a book, Kindle users will not be able to read the book during that period.
However, not all books may be lendable with publishers ultimately retaining control over which titles will have the feature.
At least some are sure to sign up to the service if only to enable a chain of word of mouth marketing and the potential incremental sales as a result.
Amazon also announced that periodicals, magazines and newspapers, will soon arrive on Kindle apps running on mobile devices.
Initially this will be for Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPad and iPod with support for the Android Kindle app coming later.
Amazon said that the periodicals will be arriving in the coming weeks and the new lending feature would appear later this year.
Read Amazon’s blog post on the subject here.
