6 days ago
How to share your Kindle e-books with a reading buddy
Let me be clear at the outset: This isn't a 'How to jailbreak your Kindle' manual. Nor is it a paean to Amazon. As someone whose working life has revolved around editing and reviewing books, I am all too aware of the problematic business model followed by the global behemoth when it comes to selling books, among other things.
This piece is, rather, a PSA of sorts, for those who aren't aware of a less-visible feature in Kindle devices that allows users to share their library with others. Given Amazon's tendency to bury such options deep inside its ecosystem, it is likely that this hack may be news to many readers. If you want to legally share your library with another user, you can use the Amazon Household platform, and it works pretty much like Amazon Prime's family plan.
Before I come to the nuts and bolts of the process, some statutory warnings and plain facts. For those who aren't already in the know, Amazon holds a near monopoly in the book-selling business, one of the segments with which the venture started. Currently, the company owns about 50% of the physical and 80% of the digital book market share.
Amazon's e-commerce model, which is based on aggressive discounting and superfast delivery, even while incurring losses, has endangered brick-and-mortar bookshops around the world.
While Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), the company's self-publishing platform, has made book publishing more egalitarian, it has also led to a drastic erosion of quality. The terms and conditions for putting out work on KDP are stringent—especially if a writer opts out of KDP's preferred pricing model, which leads to a steep reduction in royalty share.
When it comes to audio-books, the royalty shares are higher in Amazon's favour. By default, Audible, the company's audio-books platform, takes a 60% cut from all books available exclusively on it. If a writer decides to opt out of the exclusivity deal, the share could go as high as 75%.
A few years ago, best-selling fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson got into a pickle with Amazon over audiobook royalty shares for a series he had self-published. Amazon, apparently, conceded somewhat to his terms, though it's not clear how it tangibly changed the overall royalty structure for newbies and lesser known writers.
Most shocking to a reader would be the fact that you don't own any of the books you buy on Kindle. As the fine print says, you aren't buying the book itself—as you would with a physical book you may purchase from a bookshop—but simply paying for a license to read it.
Amazon can, at any stage, remove a book from your library if you violate its terms and conditions or the company is forced by other exigencies. In 2009, it deleted an e-book version of George Orwell's iconic novel, 1984, from Kindle devices, simply because the publisher who sold that edition didn't have the right to do so.
In a series of informative videos, YouTuber Jared Henderson has been highlighting such misdemeanours by Amazon, including the fact that the company can change a cover of a book you purchased. Henderson saw this happen when a TV series based on Robert Jordan's fantasy series, The Wheel of Time, came out. Without seeking his consent, Amazon swapped the cover of his old Kindle edition with the new one.
In a further tightening of the leash, Amazon recently decided to prevent users from downloading copies of the books they purchase and store them locally. This feature gave the option to users to strip the Digital Management Rights (DRM) from these files and share with others—much like you would lend out a physical copy of a book you've paid good money for to others, should you wish to.
The silver lining in all this is that you can now at least lend your library to one adult and four kids in your family. You could either send an email invitation to the person you want to share your library with by following the steps described on the Amazon Household page. Or else, you can log into your Amazon account, go to Accounts & Lists, Shopping Programs & Rentals under it, and find Amazon Household there.
Depending on the way you configure the Amazon Household account, you can share other digital content from your Prime library—games, shows, and movies—too. This is the closest you can come to sharing your digital library of books with your reading buddy—even if they are in another city—for now. Until Amazon decides to change its mind again.
