Online distributor Amazon said it would allow customers to borrow e-books they had purchased in the Kindle e-book collection.
However, not all e-books can be lent. Publishers or holders of e-book benefits, will decide which books will be lent and what nominal lending will be made.
Launched in 2007, Kindle is currently Amazon's best-selling product. The company's e-book collection currently includes nearly 487,000 books in English and is selling better than paper books.
In the US, Kindle is competed by products from companies such as Sony, Samsung, Barnes & Noble bookstores and by Apple's iPad tablet.
Book distributors such as France Loisirs et Chapitre and Fnac also plan to launch their products by the end of October and November to compete with Kindle.