Amazon quietly expanded the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library into Japan yesterday.
There doesn’t appear to have been any formal announcement from the retail giant but there is a notice in the KDP support forums which informed authors of the new opportunity for revenue.
Japanese Kindle owners can now sign up for Amazon Prime and take advantage of the same one free borrowed ebook per month offer that readers in the US, UK, Germany, and France enjoy.
Assuming I didn’t misread the website, the Japanese KOLL offers 766 titles, including both translated ebooks like The Hunger Games as well as manga, novels, and nonfiction titles.
The Kindle Owner’s Lending Library initially launched in the US in November 2011, and in October 2012 it was expanded into the UK, France, and Germany. Curiously enough, KOLL is not available anywhere else – Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, for example.
