Book Printing.

Amazon has announced that Kindle reader users will soon be able to lend Kindle books to friends and family. The exact date is, as yet, unconfirmed - but it will be sometime this year.

It’s a very positive move which will help both e-book readers and e-books to become even more widely accepted. E-books seem to have been adopted by the public in a relatively short period of time. According to Amazon, e-books are now outselling traditional hardback books – by a factor of 180 to 100. Surely it can be no more than a matter of time before e-book sales overtake paperback sales.

The new Amazon lending scheme will allow Kindle books to be lent for a two week period. During the period of the loan, the borrower will be able to access the book just as if they had bought it. The original purchaser will be unable to access the book during this period. Exactly the same as letting someone borrow a "real" book as a matter of fact.

Amazon has released a number of free Kindle apps which allow Kindle books to be read using a variety of other devices. At the moment, there are apps for the Windows PC, the Apple Mac, the iPhone, the iPad, the Blackberry smartphone and any device which runs the Android operating system. At first glance it may appear a little odd that Amazon has gone out of its way to make their best selling Kindle reader redundant in this way. Currently, 20% of all Kindle book sales are made via non-Kindle devices. As an ever growing number of devices using Android are released onto the market, it seems likely that this percentage is likely to grow.

Up until now, these free Kindle apps have allowed only Kindle books to be read. Amazon will now make it possible to read newspapers and magazines using their various free Kindle apps. Again, the release date has not yet been confirmed – but Amazon advise that they intend to start with the Apple devices and follow up with the Android devices and then the desktop applications.

These changes may appear to be fairly minor. However, they bring e-books closer into line with the functionality of conventional books, which is psychologically important for anyone making a buying decision. Kindle readers can now do everything with an e-book that they would with a printed book – apart from marking their place with a dog-ear that is. It makes it easier for even the most conservative bibliophile to make the switch to electronic books.