LendInk Is Back!!

LendInk.com is back online thanks to a dedicated group of readers and authors!

For those who missed my previous post, disabled veteran Dale Porter put together a website that was essentially eHarmony for book lovers. Person A wanting to read a particular book was hooked up with Person B with a 'lend' available on a book they bought. The actual 'lend' was handled through the retailer where the book was purchased.

In addition to the match-up function, Dale is an Amazon affiliate. For those who don't know about the Amazon affiliate program, Amazon allows an affiliate to post widgets for products carried by Amazon. In return, AMAZON pays the affiliate a few cents if a click-thru results in a buy.

For example: I'm an Amazon affiliate. Check out the list of my friends' book along the right side of your screen. If one of you clicks on, say, the widget for Will Graham's book and you buy it, then Will still gets his full 70% and I get a couple of cents from Amazon for advertising for them.

(Though honestly, I didn't do it for the money. I did it becuase my HTML abilities are piss-poor. LOL)

All-in-all, Dale's website was a win-win for EVERYONE! Readers could try new books with no risk, authors got extra exposure and everyone made money in a legitimate enterprise.

Or at least it was win-win until some dumbass indie writers got it in their pointy little heads that LendInk was a pirate site. The resulting mob didn't bother to read their contracts with Amazon, didn't bother to discover what the Amazon affiliate program did, and didn't bother to check out LendInk's website.

And I'm going to stop there before I have a stroke because what these idiots did to Dale was pure, fucking evil in my book. Moving on...

Dale is still looking at some serious expenses from defending himself from the resulting legal drama, finding a new host, dealing with the extra traffic to the website, etc.

There is a fundraising affort over at FundRazr to help Dale and LendInk get back on their feet. I hope you'll consider donating a dollar or two to a worthy cause.