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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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