Book swapping

[firecat]

Do you use www.BookMooch.com or any other book swapping portal? What do you think of the one(s) you use?

Comments

[serene]

I really like paperbackswap.com. Guy likes bookmooch. I don't know what the featureset differences are. I like that paperbackswap is truly free unless you want to print the postage when you print the mailing label, or get delivery confirmation, in which case there's a surcharge in addition to the postage. I have had no negative experiences with them in the couplefew years I've been a member.

[wild_irises]

I like BookMooch; haven't tried paperbackswap. BookMooch is also completely free; money doesn't change hands through it. You just mail the books yourself.

My only gripe about BookMooch is that when someone announces that a popular book is available, everyone who has that on their lists is notified simultaneously and first one to respond gets it. A friend said, "Well, it would be too much trouble to go in order," and I don't think it would, but heck, it's a free service, so why should I be fussy.

I do like that I can give my mooching points to good causes.

[trouble]

I found bookmoocch to be prohibitively expensive. In Canada, there's no "cheaper postage for sending printed material" or whatever it is in the US, and sometimes it ended up being cheaper to ship something to Australia than it did to ship to someone in the same province.

[branewurms]

I've used Goodreads bookswap a few times. It's okay, although the pickings are kinda slim. Do you have to ship through bookmooch w/your own money? Goodreads has the receiver pay shipping, and if you send out 10 books you get to request 1 book for free (Goodreads pays shipping). Most of the time it costs about $3.60 to request a book.

[shanaqui]

I've used bookmooch. It's okay, but the selection is mostly just popular books like old Stephen King novels. As a method to get rid of books to a good home, it's not great, as you have to pay postage and packing.

[ursula]

I've used bookmooch. The trick is usually finding books you want that someone will send you: it's most likely to have last year's bestsellers. It was pretty good for finding old-fashioned detective novels by people who aren't Christie or Sayers.

[serene]

paperbackswap does go in order, I think. It gives the person 48 hours to accept and then gives it to someone else, if how it's gone for me is any indication. It also tells you what number you are in the queue.

[serene]

Yeah, that's called Media Mail here, and without it, I might hesitate to do paperbackswap.

[serene]

At paperbackswap (and, I believe, bookmooch), you pay for outgoing shipping (and, obviously, your incoming books are free, because the shipper pays their outgoing shipping). For every 1 book you send out, you get 1 book for free, so it genuinely costs nothing.

[twisted_times]

I don't use them but one of my partners, almadsfeika, uses bookmooch quite happily and bookcrossing too, which is slightly different.

[19_crows]

I've used Bookmooch for a while. People wanted some of the obscure books I put up there, which was nice. But I have a long wish list and there's rarely anything I want available. I don't see how they could offer books to people in order because so many people join and then never come back. But heck, it's free and I've gotten some good books there.

Paperbackswap seemed more organized and cheerleadery, sending me emails to try to get me to be more active. I didn't like that.

[sauscony]

I prefer Paperback Swap for many reasons, but I also use BookMooch for books not in postable condition at PBSwap. I liked BookMooch better before some of the changes that happened recently. One site I will disrecommend is Title Trader, which really doesn't have any user support at all anymore.

[nolly]

I use BookMooch and PaperbackSwap. BookMooch lets me post ARCs; PBS doesn't. PBS has deadlines for getting things in the mail, which has pros and cons. PBS lets me post CDs / DVDs on their sister sites and transfer the credits, which is useful. I have sometimes found older / obscure books on each. BM seems to have less overhead, and I have more credits there right now, but I've used it longer.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

I have a Bookmooch account and used to use it a lot. These days I use it less because I've decided to phase out paper books in favour of the Kindle; I am intending to use up my existing points, but I am not listing any more books myself, so eventually the points will run out. The service itself is fine, though. I mooched about 70 books in total; only one failed to arrive, and Bookmooch re-credited the points with no problem. Most users are very friendly. Possible issues I can think of:

1. Mailing books out can use a lot of spoons, especially if you have to go to a post office and queue. It worked much better for me once the Royal Mail introduced self-print postage, because that meant I could pay online and then "post" it directly from the office (our facilities team happily deals with franked personal items along with our work mail).

2. If you accept international requests, it can get a bit expensive. If you use the "Ask me first" setting, though, it's okay. You get more points for sending abroad, but it's a flat rate, so depending on the country in question, the extra points may not always feel like sufficient compensation. You can also choose only to send within your own country.

3. The range of books available is not always great. Airport novels are very easy to pick up; anything out of print or otherwise obscure may take a very long time to come up. Cookbooks (a particular interest of mine) hardly ever turn up at all; I guess people either hang on to them to use or else feel embarrassed about the ketchup stains, or something ;-)

4. A few users will get a bit cheeky and demand that you "gift" them extra points for particularly rare books or for sending to expensive countries. I always refused - as I see it, the deal is that you take the hit when you send abroad in exchange for the opportunity to mooch from abroad yourself, and similarly with rare books. Very occasionally, people react to the refusal with rudeness. (On the flip side, one user sent a very sweet note and voluntarily gifted me points after I sent her something she'd wanted for a long time, so that was a nice surprise).

5. Some users are a bit clueless, so sometimes I would request a book from overseas and the other user would ask me what it would cost them to post the book, as if I somehow have better access to pricing info for their postal system than they do. For some reason this seems to be happening more often recently.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

When I buy a book, read it, and don't like it, I usually give it to a friend or the library. A friend in our bookgroup says I should use a swap group, but I have a thing about books with perfect condition. I don't have many paperbacks, either. He mentioned Paperbackswap (http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php) (ewww, I just ran through the SFF books and I wouldn't read any that I saw). He also mentioned Swap.com (http://www.swap.com/books/science-fiction-books-fantasy-books/62316/) which swaps more than books, but does swap hardbacks. (Also not books I'd read.)