Mooch Books

Give a book; get a book. That’s the basic principle for most online book exchanges. If you read more than a few books a year, joining one of these online exchanges could really save you money. Plus, the online book exchanges are set up to be easy to use so you don’t have to waste a lot of time learning how to use them. Here are the details of how two work.

BookMooch: List the books you are willing to give away on bookmooch.com. If it’s more than 10, you are already eligible for a book. When someone sees a book on your list, they request it. You put it in the mail. When it is received, you get a point, which is worth a book from someone else’s list. Overseas books are worth more points. It is also possible to donate points to one of the charities the site supports.

PaperBackSwap: Sign up at paperbackswap.com and list your books. From there it is a lot like BookMooch. For a fee, PaperBackSwap allows you to print two sheets of people with addresses and postage on it, so all you have to do is plop the book in a mailbox.

According to our local newspaper here is a list of what’s hot now:

Most wanted:

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions From Ordinary Lives by Frank Warren

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

Most available:

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Deception Point by Dan Brown

The Pelican Brief by John Grisham

Carly Milner will share hers if you’ll share yours.

Her books, that is.

In fact, Milner has a whole list of books just ripe for the taking. It includes titles by such hot authors as Michael Chabon and Bill Bryson.

All are nearly free for members of BookMooch, a Web site that connects readers interested in “mooching” from other people’s libraries.

Hera some comments from people who have been using these services and the people that created them:

“There is something fun about sending a book to someone who wants that book specifically,” said Milner, who has been a member of the site since 2007 and figures she’s shipped out about 200 works from her extensive personal library.

For the cost of postage, readers trade books through the mail in an online library of sorts.

Richard Pickering’s PaperBackSwap developed from his own experience as a book lover. Before starting the online book exchange in 2005, Pickering traveled for a living and was constantly in airport bookstores picking up a new paperback for the flight. As a result he had many gently used paperbacks and had dished out a lot of money.

‘Saving money’

An online swap, he figured, would connect readers with books for the price of postage and would save paperbacks from languishing unused on shelves or winding up in landfills.

“We believe in saving money,” Pickering said. “We also believe in recycling.”

PaperBackSwap has more than 160,000 active members and a roster of more than 200,000, Pickering said.

The site boasts more than 3.6 million books available for swapping – a number that grew from the few hundred of his own that started the service.

In any given week, Pickering says about 65,000 books are moving from owner to owner through PaperBackSwap.

In the past two years, Pickering also added SwapACD and SwapADVD to the lineup.

“We are able to satisfy the needs of a lot of different families,” he said.

The concept is pretty simple for both services. Readers list the books they are willing to share. When asked for a title on their list, they put that book in the mail.

In return, the click of a mouse delivers a literary treat from a stranger directly to the doorstep.

Sharing information

But buying books just didn’t pay. “For as much as I read, bookstores were getting really pricey,” said Salazarescobar, a Houston legal clerk who figures she reads four or five books a week.

She’s not the only one who feeds the habit online. Pickering figures the average family that really participates in PaperBackSwap can save about $300 a year.

For serious readers, the online exchange also offers a way to find out-of-print books or learn about a favorite author’s lesser-known gems, said Denise Stallcup, a writer who lives in San Antonio and participates in BookMooch.

“It has also encouraged me to stretch further with my favorite authors and introduced me to a lot of books I wouldn’t have read otherwise,” Stallcup said.

Connections

Stallcup has found that packing up a book and sending it off to someone she may never know creates literary links.

“I like the idea of a community of readers and people who appreciate poetry and literature,” she said.

Mooching is one thing. But lending – and expecting the book to return – may still not be advised for many a reader. Even Milner keeps her favorites from Jane Austen, P.G. Wodehouse or Henry James for herself.

“I only lend books,” she said, “to people who I know really well and I know where they live.”

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Have you ever gathered up all your used books and taken them to the used bookstore only to find that they are only worth about $3.00? Well, guess what there is another way to get value from your used books.  I just read about this trading post on the Web for book lovers.

Here is the story. Dianne Denton used to cart stacks of used books to her local book exchange in Chicago, where she only got some loose change for all that work. Her frustration inspired her to launch Novel Action, an online clearinghouse where memebers can send their old books and receive an equal number of used books in return. Or they can bank their “book bucks” for later.

Memebership costs $25.00 a year and customers pay a $4.80 flat-rate shipping charge for up to six pounds of books. The site has a virtual scale on which users can weigh books in their shopping cart. You can keep the books forever if you want or you can trade them back for new ones.

Your books have to be in good condition and can be really outdated. One user said they figured their average cost was about $1.50 per book. If you have been to a used bookstore lately you know you can’t find many books for that price plus with online book exchange you don’t waste any gas driving back and forth.

Here are some more book swapping sites:

www.novelaction.com

www.paperbackswap.com

www.titletrader.com (books, movies and CDs)

www.bookins.com (books and DVDs)

If you are a college student and need to sell back books at the end of the year, there is a better option than selling them back to the school bookstore. Sellbackbooks.com makes it simple, fast and profitable for you to sell books. You don’t want to be stuck with old textbooks on your shelf that you are never going to open again, so get rid of them! SellBackBooks.com makes it easy to sell used college books online for more money than your campus bookstore will pay! You simply enter the books ISBN, click search to see their offer and if you decide to sell to them – they pay the shipping. Couldn’t be easier.