How to borrow books for free on your Amazon Kindle

I’ve previously written on my blog about how to share your Kindle books with your friends. This is a great way to enjoy the same books your friends enjoy.

But what if you want to “borrow” a book that none of your friends have read? Well, thanks to Amazon’s recent announcement, this just got a whole lot easier.

Amazon has introduced something they call the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library which allows Kindle owners with an Amazon Prime membership to “choose from thousands of books to borrow for free including over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers – as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates.”

Now as exciting as this is, let me point out a couple of key points. For starters, you have to have an Amazon Prime membership, which will set you back $79/year, although you can get a free one month trial if you don’t want to commit to one year right off the bat. In my opinion, this is totally worth it because not only do you get access to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library but you also get access to thousands of free movies and television shows with Amazon Instant Video as well as free 2-day shipping via UPS on darn near anything you buy from Amazon.com.

Plus, I still stand behind the fact that $79/year is worth it just for the free 2-day UPS shipping.

The second thing to note is that the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library does not contain every single Kindle book. If it did, I’m sure there would be a few publishers pretty upset at Amazon. But I do like the fact that Amazon includes over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers so you don’t feel like your only choices are books written 10 years ago.

Finally, you can only borrow one book per month. So even though there are no due dates, don’t plan on stocking up on a year’s worth of books the first time you use the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

For more information on the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library click here.