Penguin (USA) announced on Monday that they were pulling new Kindle e-books from libraries. Good news is that it won’t affect Canadian libraries.
It seems that the publisher was outraged that Amazon had listed them on their “Kindle Lending Library” which gives Amazon Prime members access to a number of popular titles for free (but only for American members). Penguin had declined to be included on this list. But they also pulled titles from Overdrive, a site that local libraries use to lend e-books to patrons.
While Canadian libraries use Overdrive, they don’t lend out Kindle e-books here – only epub files that work with Kobo, Sony ereaders and other non-Kindle ereaders. On a side note: it’s not impossible to convert an epub file to one your Kindle will read. Penguin has confirmed that it is not pulling epub titles.
Meanwhile, American libraries are dealing with a lot of angry patrons who have been waiting for new titles only to see themselves dropped from the waiting list. I personally think this makes Penguin look like a behemoth corporation that’s trying desperately to hang on to its power as one of the largest publishers.
Which is too bad because I really like Penguin. They publish some of my favourite books. While Penguin can hold Amazon responsible by witholding titles, ultimately it’s their loyal readers that suffer.
Photo credits: Jocelyn @ Whacked
