I own a lot of books. My Bookfolk listing says just under 400, and I know there's a few that haven't been listed for this or that reason. One of the biggest reasons I don't list books is that I don't plan to keep them. But getting rid of old books can be harder than one might expect.
Several months ago I happened on a site, new at the time called BookMooch. The concept is simple. Users list books that they are willing to give away (selling books is prohibited) and for each book they list they receive .01 of a point. List ten and you get a point which can be used to "mooch" a book that someone else has listed. It's a simple and elegant point system which encourages people to give away more than they recieve.
Recently I gathered together a box of books that I wanted to give away. My solution was simple; I took the box to an SCA even and let people sort through it and take whatever they wanted. Unfortunately at the end of the day there were still a dozen or so books left in the box. I thought about taking the remaining books to a used book store, or to the local library or bookstore, then I remembered my long neglected BookMooch account.
Last Saturday I sat down with my laptop and the box, logged into my BookMooch account and started adding books. BookMooch searches Amazon's listings by ISBN, so it only took a few minutes to add the books to my listings.
When I was finished I took a few minutes to look around the site, and I found that they have a widgit that can be added to a web page or blog. I decided to try it out, and a few moments later I had a nice little addition to my blog. If you scroll down a bit, just past the google ads you'll find the books I have listed to give away.
BookMooch is a great idea, and a very functional (if not particularly beautiful) web site. It's an efficient way to pass along books that might end up in a thrift shop or used bookstore and get a little something back in return. So far I've received two requests for book, and I'm looking forward to seeing what might turn up that I'd be interested in mooching.
Friday, April 11, 2008
The Goodness that is BookMooch
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2 comments:
I've got a bookmooch account too, been using it for...I'd guess a year now. I totally love it, get something in the mail every few weeks, and it's a great way to pass on books I don't care about. Our other method is the artifact in our living room, the Magical Rotating Bookshelf, on which books appear spontaneously without Todde or my knowledge, and disappear equally spontaneously. You have to have a well-trod house, though, to make the thing work. Thankfully, we have that.
If you want to friend me on bookmooch, I'm ladymora there too. :)
Very cool! I must admit though to some fear of looking at your offerings as I can easily envision books simply move back and forth between our houses.
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