Ch..ch..ch..changes!
In our most recent newsletter, we announced that we’d be making changes to our “it pays to lend” program in the “near future” — when what we should have said was that it would be available within 24 hours: Variable pricing is now live! (We didn’t actually expect to be able to launch it this soon.)
For those who missed the newsletter, here’s what we had to say about the new system:
Our “it pays to lend” program has been successful beyond anything we would have ever expected. We love that we’ve discovered a way to reward our Lendlers for their willingness to share their books with other members of the Lendle community. Still, we’ve learned a lot over the last couple months, and we think there’s room for improvement.
One of our main goals has always been to provide an increased incentive to spur lending. At the same time, not all books are created equal. Often, users who buy the least expensive books are earning the most for their lends. In fact, if a book is only $0.99 – we’ve been paying some of our Lendlers $1.00 to lend that book. On the flip side, someone who lends a more expensive book, even one with more demand, earns the same amount, even though their budget and interests may not allow them to lend as many books.
To address this disparity, we’ve come up with an algorithm that will take several factors into account to assign a lend value to every book. That value will be updated continuously, as various factors change. For example, the price or demand could go up or down on a given book, at which point the lend rate for that book will adjust accordingly. We’ve spent a lot of time creating an algorithm that will ensure consistency, and we hope to roll this new system out in the near future.
Any unpaid credit earned prior to the switch will pay out at the existing rates. Under the new system, Patrons will still earn double for every lend. Some books will actually be worth more under variable pricing (for both Patron and non-Patron accounts) than they are under the $0.50 and $1.00 system.
Looking ahead, we have some really exciting ideas about how Lendlers will be able to spend the money they earn and we’ll be folding variable pricing into a host of new features.
