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PaperBackSwap
A while back I told you guys about a book swapping website I’ve been using called Swaptree. In the interim I started using PaperBackSwap, so I thought I should let you guys know about it too.
PaperBackSwap is slightly different from Swaptree. You acquire books using credits. (You are given some free ones when you start. I believe it’s 3) You can get credits either from sending someone else a book or you can buy them. The credits are $3.45 a piece, but if you buy larger batches of them they cost less. So even if you buy your credits instead of only using credits earned by sending books, you’re still getting books for $3.45 or less, which is wicked cheap.
Since PaperBackSwap doesn’t use a direct swapping method, you wishlist books you want. When a copy of the book becomes available, it is first offered whoever first wishlisted it. This sounds like a long wait, but I haven’t had to wait too terribly long for anything yet. Also if you put in a large wishlist, you tend to get a pretty steady flow of books being offered to you. Another cool feature of PaperBackSwap is PBS Market, which is basically an overstock shop of books. You can get these for super-low price either paying just money or just credits or a combination of money and credits. When a book you’ve wishlisted becomes available in PBS Market, they notify you but your position is also maintained in the wishlist unless you choose to buy the PBS Market book.
You should be aware though that PaperBackSwap leaves it up to the requester to set the specific condition requirements for books. The website generally requests that the book be in “good condition” with “no markings,” but anything beyond that is up to the requester. Say that you don’t want books that have been in a smoker’s home. You would say in your settings “No books from homes with smoke please.” This message would be visible to the giver when you request the book. They can then reject it for the “doesn’t meet requester’s requirements” reason. However, I found that you should put some sort of requirement in because it makes givers think twice about sending you an iffy copy. For mine I just reiterated PaperBackSwap’s “no excessive highlighting or writing.” Since then I’ve been receiving better quality books.
I like using both websites, because if there’s a book I really want, I can get it quicker for cheap on PaperBackSwap, but if I’m a bit more patient Swaptree ensures that I’m doing a 1 to 1 trade. Whereas on PaperBackSwap I’ve sent out 2 books but received 10. Oops, lol.
If you do choose to join PaperBackSwap, please let them know that I referred you as it will get me free credits. My username is tapcat16. Also, please check out the books I have available and see if you want any. You’ll know for sure that you’re getting your copy from a reliable giver and a super-speedy shipper, if I do say so myself. 🙂 I also frequently add books, possibly even ones I’ve reviewed here, so check back often. I’ve added a widget on the right-hand side of my blog that will link you directly to my profile for future reference. I like my books to find new homes. It makes me all happy inside.
So there’s the inside scoop on PaperBackSwap. Cheers!
Friday Fun! (Featuring My Niece and Swaptree)
My lovely loyal readers and friends, so sorry there’s been no book reviews this week! The book I’m currently reading is really long, and I’m not enjoying it that much so the pace of my reading is a bit below average. I definitely should ring in next week with a review though, as it’s almost done!
This week I played pub trivia for the first time and discovered that I am not good at trivia. This is funny and ironic cause I know lots of random facts, but apparently I don’t know trivia type facts. I mean, really, who’s a tall athletic actor who guest starred in 1970s tv shows? Jeez, I dunno. I also didn’t enjoy that the music to keep teams from overhearing each other meant that I had to yell all night. That’s only worth it for a concert. Ah well. Lesson learned. I guess I should stick to arcade games, pool tables, and dart boards when we go out.
Some of you are aware that I welcomed my first niece into the world on December 23rd. My brother and my sister-in-law made the choice to have her, even though she has Down Syndrome. I know they have plenty of love in their hearts for a special baby, and they are just wonderful with her. Unfortunately, one of the elements of Down Syndrome is that the babies almost all have heart problems. They usually operate on the babies at 6 months (I have no idea why at that particular point, but I’m sure there’s a reason). Anyway, due to the heart condition, my niece is not very strong. She struggled to learn how to eat. I guess that takes a lot of energy she didn’t have at first. Finally she gained enough weight and was eating well enough to come home. I was going to go meet her and visit my brother and father this weekend, but unfortunately she had to get readmitted to the hospital. She wasn’t gaining weight, which babies are supposed to do. This is of course difficult for my brother and sister-in-law who also have an almost 3 year old little boy to take care of and a small farm to run. Thankfully, most of my family lives near them so they have lots of help. I wish there was something I could do from a distance to help my brother, but there’s not much beyond being an ear to listen when he needs to talk.
In much happier news, allow me to tell you guys about Swaptree. Swaptree allows you to list books you have but don’t want and books you want, and then it sets up 1:1 trades for you (or you can browse and request trades yourself). This works extra well since they set up 3 way trades, which helps you find a lot more books. The matches they make are in no particular order on your want list, so it’s a bit of a surprise what you get, particularly if your want list is as long as mine. Since part of ringing in the new year was weeding my personal library, I excitedly decided to try this out. It’s so awesome! So far I’ve gotten rid of 8 books for books on my tbr list. For those wondering, my weeded books were mainly textbooks I will never ever read again, some romance novels that came to my library for free that my boss gave me, and books from a point in my deconversion when I was wondering if maybe I should be pagan. For the record, I’m not pagan. I guess I’m deist. Anywho, so the books I’ve received in exchange so far are:
- Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford
Do not mock me. I have a thing for memoirs. - Living the Simple Life by Elaine St. James
I’m a big fan of minimalism, and this was highly recommended on minimalist blogs. - The Accidental Demon Slayer by Angie Fox
Yes, another paranormal romance. However, it’s supposed to be a comical one which will change things up a bit. - Life, The Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams
I’ve already read this, but I love love LOVE the Hitchhiker series, and didn’t (still don’t actually) own them all, so I’m fleshing out the “trilogy.” - Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres
This memoir is by a woman whose fundamentalist Christian parents sent her to the same reform school in the Dominican Republic that my cousin’s parents sent her to, so I was intrigued. - Wild Swans by Jung Chang
I realized I haven’t read much non-western lit lately, and I enjoyed the nonwestern lit I read in college. This memoir is about three generations of Chinese women, and I think it looks really good! - Neuromancer by William Gibson
A classic scifi book that my nerdy friends have been berating me for not having read. 😉 - Feed by M. T. Anderson
A dystopian book about our heads being plugged into computers. Right up my alley.
All those books and my personal library size hasn’t increased at all! I encourage you guys to check Swaptree out. The only costs associated are shipping, and you can print labels directly from the website for extra ease. Each book costs around $2.46 to ship.
Have a nice long weekend, everyone! Rock on Martin Luther King Jr!
Reading Goals for 2010
I don’t want to over-plan my reading for 2010, but I do want to give it a loose structure and maybe broaden my horizons a bit. I also want to be practical about my reading, for instance the fact that I rarely have time to go to the library (erm, the public one, not the one I work at 5 days a week). Anywho, with that in mind, my loosely-defined goals for 2010 are:
- Read the books I bought for undergrad classes but didn’t have time to read then. Seeing as how my two majors are topics I actually like (History and English and American Literature), I actually do want to read these old “assignments.” Expect to see a bit of ancient literature, Chekhov, and noir.
- Read a bit more nonfiction in areas I want to be more educated in, preferably science. Seeing as how I work in a medical library, this should be pretty easy to pull off cheaply.
- Utilize Swaptree to get rid of books I weeded from my collection at the end of the year and in turn get books I want to read. Since I’m doing an exact 1:1 exchange, this should keep my book collection on the smaller side.
- Courtesy of a challenge from @shaindelr over on Twitter who gasped about my not having read any poetry in 2009–read one book of poetry. However, I’m not making any promises that it won’t be of the ancient variety. 😉
- Finally, watching Japanese movies got me pretty into the stories their culture has to offer. That along with seeing some graphic novels in friends’ houses made me want to give the genre an official shot, so I’ll be reading at least 3 graphic novels/manga in 2010. I’m super-excited to read my first Battle Royale, which I wanted to read after seeing and loving the movie.
Why BookSwim Is Bad for Reading
BookSwim is a business that essentially claims to be the book version of Netflix. I’d been to their website a few months ago, but when someone reposted it on Twitter I revisited. I was immediately struck by how the whole thing bothers me. After a bit of pondering, I realized why.
BookSwim is attempting, subtly, to become a monopoly in the supply of books.
They claim to be more convenient and better than borrowing from a local library, cheaper than buying books, and more trustworthy than eReaders. They also claim to be better than swapping services like SwapTree, since you’ll be getting new or barely used books instead of old copies. However, they understand you may still want to buy a book, so you always have the option of buying a book you have rented from them and then just not returning it. Soon, all you will need for books is a BookSwim account.
Everyone knows monopolies are bad from an economic standpoint. Where there’s a monopoly there’s horribly high prices, and the item being offered becomes a mark of wealth rather than something everyone uses. However, I see a monopoly of this type as dangerous to literacy, intellectualism, and even freedom.
How easy would it be to censor what the public reads if everyone attains their information from the same book provider? Can you imagine the nightmare for freedom of thought it would be if one congolmerate controlled all collection development for an entire nation? Already they claim to have almost every book you would ever want to read, yet when I searched for five books on my to be read list, only the most recently published one (this year) was held by BookSwim. (Most of the other were from 1960s to the 1980s, though one was a classic). They claim to be willing to buy any book they don’t have that you want, but I honestly am skeptical about this. Maybe I’ve received too many promises like that from cell phone providers, but I can just see the “sorry, there wouldn’t be enough demand to warrant the price” email now.
I know most users wouldn’t limit themselves to just BookSwim for getting their books. At least not right now. Yet this scenario of a Big Brother monopoly over where we can acquire our books is clearly what BookSwim wants.
“But, Amanda,” I can hear you saying, “Shouldn’t a business want to become a great succcess?” Well, yes, but they could have come up with a business model that is more supportive of the community of reading and learning. A website such as IndieBound, for instance, that makes it easy for users to find local independent bookstores.
Reading and learning isn’t just about “Oh I got this book that’s popular right now, and it came so conveniently in my mail.” Reading and learning are about the journey and the connections. When I go to my local independent bookstore and browse for something to read, I not only get a used book cheap, but I also chat with the owner and other browsers. I leave knowing that my book came from someone else in the community.
I like knowing that the books I read come from many sources. I use the local public library, borrow from friends, buy used from indie bookstores, buy new copies, receive ARCs from LibraryThing and blogs, and plan to swap via SwapTree in the near future. My knowledge-base is fluid and about a community. It isn’t one business that ships my books to me in the mail. It’s the various communities of readers that overlap and interact to make for my own unique learning experience. If a company such as BookSwim did become a monopoly, I would lose all that, and that is one of my favorite aspects of reading.
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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