TerrieMiller.com

I’ve been enjoying the (currently) free service, Paperback Swap, a web site that helps you trade books (and not just paperbacks…you can trade hardcover and audio books, too).

The basics are easy: you create an account and enter the ISBN of the books you want to offer; enter ten books, and you’ll get two free credits to receive books. Each credit lets you request a book from another user of the service. Any print book is one credit; audio books are two credits.

When another member wants a book you’ve offered, you get a notice by email with a link to the site that helps you print a shipping label (including postage, if you want to pay for it right there) and mark the book as sent. If you’ve got a smallish paperback, the label you print can even be used to wrap the book and then just drop it in the mailbox. Shipping costs tend to run about $2.23 for the books I’ve sent; the service has tools for determining the cheapest way to send any particular book. It really makes clever use of all the data that’s available out there about books!

When the recipient gets the book, they mark it as received in the system, and you’re given another credit to get books yourself.

I haven’t had any bad experiences with the service so far. Most users send books the cheapest (slowest) way possible, so if you’re in a hurry, this isn’t for you. It’s great if you’re looking for classics or don’t mind older editions of books. And I love using this to get books that I want to read someday, but might not have time to read right away if I checked it out at the library.

There are several nice features that let you customize and extend the service. A wishlist feature means you’ll get notified when a book you want becomes available (and you can set an item to “autorequest”). Books need to be “in good condition, and not excessively worn”. If you have any doubts about the condition of a book you want to post, you can send a message to the requestor explaining the situation before you send it, to verify that it’s ok with them. And it’s kind of fun to see the stats about your trades; the distance of my transactions to date ranges from 51 to 2,687 miles. Here’s a map view of the books I’ve sent out:

There’s really a plethora of community features on the site, and I haven’t explored many of them. I’ve got too much reading to do…

Visit Paperback Swap.