When sharing with friends, books can be borrowed for a maximum of 14 days. However, if you share your Kindle books with your family, they can have access to them for as long as they like. Below are detailed instructions on how to loan a Kindle eBook to a friend or family member, as well as instructions on how they can then download the shared Kindle book to their device.
How to Loan a Kindle Book to Anyone
There are two ways to lend a Kindle book to someone. You can choose either method depending on which is easiest to you, though we recommend following the first set of instructions below. Use ‘Manage Your Contact and Devices’ to Loan a Kindle Book This method takes you directly to your account page that lists all the Kindle books you’ve purchased, which makes it really easy to locate and share your books. Loan Kindle Books From the Product Detail Page Another way to share Kindle books with others is by first finding it through the Kindle Store.
How to Download a Borrowed Kindle Book
If a friend has sent you an eBook to borrow, follow these instructions for downloading it to your Kindle reading app:
Lending Limitations
Not all Kindle books can be loaned out. Only books that are marked as eligible for lending can actually be borrowed by others. If you don’t have a Kindle or an app that can read Kindle books, select Accept loaned book anyway, and then follow the instructions for downloading a free Kindle reading app. Once you’ve loaned a book out to someone, you can not read it during that period. In other words, a Kindle book can be read by only one person at a time, which means a book being borrowed from you is accessible only by the person that’s borrowing it. The person you’ve loaned your Kindle book to will have it for a maximum of 14 days (this period of time is set by the publisher) before it’s returned back to you. Given that they have seven days to accept the loan, assuming they wait a full week to finally borrow the book, and given that you can’t access your book from the moment you begin the loaning process, you could be without the Kindle book for a total of 21 days. You can lend a particular book only once, which means once one person has borrowed a specific Kindle book from you, you can not loan the same book back out to the same person or anyone else.
Connecting With Others Who Want to Share Kindle Books
If you want to borrow a Kindle book that your friend doesn’t have, there are certain websites that will let you connect with other people who want to share Kindle books. Here are a few of our favorites:
How to Share Kindle Books With Your Family
The only thing that needs to be done to share Kindle books with your family is to define another adult and the children that should have access to your account. Adding a child to your account is as easy as following Step 1 and 2 again, but this time choose Add a Teen or Add a Child.
