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Trading Books Print E-mail
Tuesday, 01 July 2008

Trading Books

Libraries are great, but sometimes I want to keep a book, or write in it, or find an obscure book my library does not have. Or perhaps you do not live near a big library. Buying new books can be fun, but sometimes you just want to read a book and then read another and another, without amassing a huge collection. Trading books gives you an opportunity to reduce waste and save the energy needed to print new books, without stopping reading. I started looking online for bookswap clubs, and free book websites. I haven't had time to use any of them yes, so I would love feedback from people who have used these or have other suggestions. Here is what I found so far:

Paper Book Swap How it works: Sign up for membership and post ten books. Each time a book is requested you print a "wrapper", affix postage, and drop it in the mail. For every book you send out, you receive one credit, worth one book. You can then request a book, and the owner will mail it to you.
Cost: Membership is currently free. You pay the price of postage on the books you mail.
Loan or Keep? You can keep the books you receive, or repost them on the website. You do not get the books you give away back.
Special Features: For an $8 yearly fee you can participate in the box-o-book program. This allows you to trade a whole box of books with someone with a collection you are interested in, if they want to borrow books from you as well. This allows you to save on postage and make one trip to the post office.
Website: http://www.paperbackswap.com

BookMooch How it works: This site is fairly similar, but the point system is different. For every book you post you get one tenth (0.1) of a point, and every time you send a book you get 1 point for locations within the country and three points for outside the country. Requesting a book costs 1 point within the country and 2 points outside. The founder wants to encourage the sharing of books between countries since books from other countries are often hard to find using traditional methods. You must share 1 book for every 2 you receive.
Cost: Membership is free. You must pay postage for the books you mail.
Loan or Keep? You can keep the books you receive or repost them.
Special Features: If you have extra points you can donate them to charities so that people can receive free books. Book receivers rate the book senders. People may be more willing to send books to people with good ratings.
Website: http://www.bookmooch.com/
Similar Sites: What's On My Bookshelf (http://whatsonmybookshelf.com/about.php) titletrader.com (http://www.titletrader.com) readersunited.com (http://readersunited.com/)

Bookins How it works: Enter books on the site and request books. The staff handles all the logistics involved in trading, you do not have to contact the person who has the book. More popular/valuable books give you more points, and cost more points to request. You can also trade DVDs. Additionally, you can print postage slips so that you don't have to go to the post office.
Cost: You pay $4.49 for books you receive. This includes shipping and all other costs.
Loan or Keep? You can keep the books or repost them.
Special Features: Staff takes care of any missing books or other problems. You do not have to resolve disputes with other book owners.
Website: http://www.bookins.com

BooksFree.com How it Works: A book renting site similar to Netflicks. You order the books you want and return them when you are done. Since you don't have to pay for shipping, if you read 4 or 5 books a month it probably comes to about the same cost as the trading sites. On the other hand, you don't get to keep the books you receive.
Cost: $10/month for two books at a time. Shipping is paid for in both directions.
Loan or Keep: Rental. However, you can buy the book if you would like to keep it.
Website: http://www.booksfree.com/

America's Bookshelf How it Works: You register your books and request books you would like. When someone wants your book, America's Bookshelf sends you an envelope with postage already paid. You put your book in the envelope and send it off. When you request a book, it will be mailed to you by the owner. After you are done reading a book, check it back in with the site and leave it on your shelf until someone requests it.
Cost: $12/year plus $3.50 per book.
Loan or Keep: Loan.
Website: http://www.americasbookshelf.com

Book Crossing How it Works: You choose a book you would like to "release", register it, write the book crossing number and any notes into the front of the book and leave it where someone will find it, or give it to a friend. If you find a book from book crossing you can enter the BC number and see where it has been. Users write journal entries about their books and track the journeys of the books they have "released".
Cost: Free. You give away books with no promise of receiving a book back.
Loan or Keep: Once the book is released, who knows what will happen to it. The idea is to keep passing the books along.
Website: http://bookcrossing.com/

Check out Friedbeef's Tech listing of Top Ten free book sites: Part 1 (http://www.friedbeef.com/2007/04/02/top-10-best-places-to-get-free-books-part-1/) and Part 2 (http://www.friedbeef.com/2007/04/05/top-10-best-places-to-get-free-books-part-2/), as well as a compilation of reader suggestions (http://www.friedbeef.com/2007/04/09/best-places-to-get-free-books-the-ultimate-guide/). These include both real books and e-books.

An alternative to trading books online is visiting a used bookstore. There you can sell or trade in your books and buy different books. However, sometimes the bookstore doesn't pay you much for the books so you may end up with less books than you started. Many libraries have book sales, either of their old books or of books people donate. I've also seen a box in my neighborhood (it used to be a box that held free newspapers) for free books. Of course that only works if there happens to be a book you want there. That's what makes the online sites so clever, they connect you to books all over the country or the world. You can also trade books the old fashioned way with family or friends. However you trade books, it’s a great opportunity to read more while wasting less!

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Last Updated ( Friday, 12 February 2010 )

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