Chapter 4. Lending and Borrowing Books with LendMe on Your NOOK Color

To keep readers from sharing ebooks with all their friends, publishers usually protect ebooks with digital rights management (DRM), which ties an ebook to an individual, and unless that individual can prove that he is an authorized reader, the ebook will not open.

DRM is one of the reasons some people don’t like ebooks. After all, when readers find a good read, they like to pass it on to friends and family. The number of people with whom you can share a physical book is fairly limited, but because ebooks are digital copies of a book, they can be shared with millions of people quite easily via email, Facebook, and any number of other methods.

One of the unique features that B&N added to your NOOK Color is the ability to lend some NOOK Books to other readers using the LendMe feature. Although there are some restrictions when lending and borrowing books, the LendMe feature is a step in the right direction.

Lending Books with LendMe

To lend a book to someone, the book must support LendMe. Not all books do. If a book does support lending, you see the LendMe logo on the book’s page on bn.com, as shown in Figure 4.1. You also see the LendMe logo banner on the top-right corner of the cover on the NOOK Color and in the NOOK Apps.

Figure 4.1 The LendMe logo appears on a book’s page at bn.com if the book is lendable.

The NOOK Color has many methods for lending books to your friends.

Lending from Your Library

If you are at the Home screen or in your library:

1. Press and hold the cover and then tap LendMe. The LendMe screen appears (see Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.2 Tap With Contacts or On Facebook to pick a friend to lend to.

2. Tap With Contacts or On Facebook. Either option gives you a similar screen (see Figure 4.3). The primary difference is the method the lend offer is communicated. If you choose With Contacts, the person is sent an email. If you choose On Facebook, the offer is posted on the person’s wall (see Figure 4.4).

Figure 4.3 Select one of your Facebook friends.

Figure 4.4 The loan offer appears on your friend’s wall.

3. Select a contact, or select Add Contact to add someone not currently in your contact list. Tap Next.

If you use the On Facebook option, tap Select Friend to see a list of your Facebook friends. Type in the Search field to narrow your search, select your friend, and tap Done.

4. Type a message to send with the lend invitation. (The message is optional.)

5. Tap Send or Post.

Your NOOK Color sends the offer and lets you know when it is successfully sent. The cover banner LendMe changes to Lent. Also, if you visit My NOOK Library, you can see details about when the offer was sent, who is borrowing it, and when it will be back to your library (see Figure 4.5).

Figure 4.5 The loan status on My NOOK Library.

Lending from LendMe in the Library

If you tap Library from the Quick Nav Bar, you see LendMe as an option. Tap LendMe. The screen shows a series of shelves. Swipe left or right to move back and forth among the covers on the shelf. The three shelves are Borrowed, Books Available for Lending, and Lent to Others. You can also tap the large red banner at the top that takes you to the LendMe app (see the section “Lending Using the NOOK Friends App” for more information about the LendMe app). To lend books, follow the steps in the section “Lending from Your Library.”

Rules for Lending

Choose carefully when lending a book because after you lend a NOOK Book, you can never lend that particular NOOK Book to anyone again. However, a NOOK Book is considered to be on loan only if your friend accepts the LendMe offer. If your friend rejects the offer or if she allows the offer to expire without accepting it, you can lend the NOOK Book again after it’s returned to your library.

Figure 4.6 The LendMe screen.

The person to whom you’ve loaned the NOOK Book has 7 days to accept the loan offer. If she doesn’t accept within 7 days, the book is returned to your library. The loan offer can also be rejected, in which case the book is returned to your library immediately.

A NOOK Book is loaned for 14 days, and while it is on loan, Lent appears on the cover and you cannot read the book. When you loan a book, you also loan your DRM rights to the book. Only one person can possess the DRM rights to a book at any one time, so you need to wait until the book is returned to your library before you can read the book again.

Borrowing Books

When a friend lends you a book, you receive a notification of the offer (see Figure 4.7). You have 7 days to either accept the offer or reject it. You can accept or reject the loan offer from your NOOK Color, original NOOK, or any of the NOOK Apps.

Figure 4.7 Versions of the same offer on different NOOK devices: NOOK for iPad™, NOOK for iPhone^®, NOOK for PC™ app, My NOOK Library, and NOOK Color.

If you accept a loan offer from your NOOK Color, that book is also available for the loan period in NOOK Apps or original NOOK, and vice versa.

You can determine how much time is left on your loan period by looking at the cover. You see a number in the bottom right that indicates the number of days left. If you press and hold the cover and tap View Details, the price of the NOOK Book appears. You can tap the price to purchase the NOOK Book.

Lending Using the NOOK Friends App

You need to understand that the NOOK Friends app is related but separate from the LendMe program. This section covers the LendMe features of the NOOK Friends app; for the social features of the NOOK Friends app, see Chapter 8, “Using the Social Features of Your NOOK Color,” for more information about this app.

If you have a circle of friends with NOOK Colors, you can see what NOOK Books they have available to lend and make a request. Here’s how you do this:

1. From the Quick Nav Bar, tap Apps. Then tap NOOK Friends. Alternatively, from the Library, tap LendMe and then tap the Borrow Books from Friends with the NOOK Friends Beta button. The NOOK Friends app opens (see Figure 4.8).

Figure 4.8 The NOOK Friends app on the LendMe tab.

2. Tap either Lend, Borrow, Offers, or Requests depending on how you want to view what’s available:

• Lend: Shows the NOOK Books you can lend.

• Borrow: Shows the NOOK Books your friends have available for borrowing.

• Offers: Shows NOOK Books friends have offered to lend you.

• Requests: Shows NOOK Books your friends have requested to borrow.

3. If you tap Lend, you see the available books you can lend. Tap LendMe to begin the process to lend a NOOK Book to a friend. Tap With Contacts or On Facebook to open a screen to select the person. Enter a message if you want and tap Send. The person sees a request like that shown in Figure 4.9.

Figure 4.9 Decline or accept a LendMe offer.

4. If you tap Borrow, you see the available books you can borrow. Tap Borrow again, and tap Request to ask to borrow this NOOK Book. Enter a message if you want and tap Send. Type a message and tap Send. The request is sent. They see a request like that shown in Figure 4.10.

Figure 4.10 A friend is requesting to borrow a book.

5. If you receive a lend offer, you can open the NOOK Friends app, tap LendMe, and tap Offers, where you see what NOOK Books are offered you. Tap View Offer. Here you can cancel the request (thus, postponing the decision until later), decline the offer, or accept it (see Figure 4.9).

If you tap the Settings button, you can choose to show certain NOOK Books to your friends (see Figure 4.11). If you want to hide a NOOK Book from lending, tap Show. The slider changes to Hide. You can change this back by tapping Hide.

Figure 4.11 Hide books from your friends so they cannot borrow it.

Why would you want to hide a book from lending? You may be reading it at this moment and don’t want to decline a request, or you may have a friend you know wants to borrow the book. Because the book can only be lent once, you want to remove it from view so that others cannot request it and you, again, have to decline.