Question about what people think about Goodreads Bookswap feature

So, What do you guys think about the Goodreads bookswap feature.

You basically pick a book that is available, put in your credit card, when they book owner prints the shipping label, you get charged and then you get your book *supposedly*. They are calling it the "karma system".

What do you guys think? I mean, in essence that is what Bookmooch is as well. The only difference is you pay for the books you send and not the ones you get.

I am interested to see how this all pans out. I have a feeling they are going to have tons of people complain about paying with their CC and never getting a book.

I also was browsing the books available over there, and I wish those people would put their books on bookmooch! There is some great stuff on there.

I'm leery about submitting credit card info to services like that...

I generally think most people mean well, but I think this sort of system leaves too much room open for error, and possibly if problems DO arise, no simple way to rectify the situation.

Yes, and does it mean LT needs to add a swapping feature?

So, basically, when the sender prints out the shipping label, the amount is charged to your credit card?

2> I am leery about it as well.

3> I guess that is the way it works based on the info on the website. I want through a "mock" swap up to the gredit card info and her is what it says..

Estimated price of shipping label: $3.97

When will I be billed?
You will not be billed until the book owner prints the shipping label.
What if the shipper changes the edition or weight?
The cost of the shipping label may vary if the book owner changes the weight of the book or has moved to a new postal code. If the cost increases by more than $2.00, we will ask you to reconfirm before billing.
What if the shipper prints the label but doesn't ship?
Shipping labels are valid the day they are printed. If they're not used within a certain time frame, we'll attempt to cancel the label and issue a refund.

hmm they will "attempt" to cancel the label and issue a refund. Huh. I see this so not working out for them.

It is just so weird to me, when I was browsing, how many highly wishlisted books are available. Why aren't all of these people on bookmooch?

I use Goodreads to search for new books mostly and keep track of what my friends are reading but it isn't the be-all end-all. I much prefer both Librarything and Bookmooch.

We need to get more people over here. They don't know what they are missing.

So, there's no points. It's not BM, which has a 1/1 point system. It's more like MemberGiveaway, but instant and the recipient pays shipping?

GoodReads has book swapping now? They sure don't promote it much. Then again, I only use GoodReads for its Twitter integration so I could have missed their announcements about it.

Exactly. There are no points. You search the available books, pick one, put in your CC #, verify your address and the book owner prints the label and mails it off. All books automatically have delivery confirmation and a "small surcharge to goodreads to pay for the service"

in the FAQ section is says...

How can we prevent evil people from leeching off others?
Goodreads Bookswap relies on a reputation system that we're calling "karma." When someone requests a book, the person who owns the book can take a look at the person's "karma stats" before deciding to send them the book. They will be able to see how many books the person has requested and received, and how many books they have offered to swap. The book owner can then decide if they'd like to give that person a book. Hopefully, generous people will find that they receive more books!

I would be more concerned with the sender than the person who put in their CC to pay for shipping regardless of how many books they had put up on the site to send off.

Ah, "small surcharge to goodreads to pay for the service"

Bogus. Totally bogus. Bookmooch is free. People who pay for this sort of thing are saps.

So, shall we just copy them and make it free? I'd like to take them down in such an obvious thing.

Then again, my problem with both systems is simply that it's only really good for getting crappy books.

The trick is, there's no better system. Free or a 1/1 point system make people feel good about it, but it drives good books out of the system, leaving the crap. Doing it by original price is arbitrary and weird. Doing it by self-set points makes people fell like they're buying something.

I agree that the surcharge is junk.

Bookmooch is free. You ask for a book you get it. You get asked for a book you send it. Easy peasy.

I don't understand the appeal of what Goodreads is doing if you have to put in your CC # to do it. And PAY GOODREADS for a service that they are "providing" when they aren't actually doing any of the work. (except for the policing of the printing but not sending the labels) If I wanted to pay for a book outright, I would buy a used copy on Alibris or Amazon.

How would you implement such a thing here on Librarything, Tim? Goodreads thinks they are cooler than Librarything? They have no idea! ;)

Do they say what the surcharge is? Is the point not to say, so they can up it as the thing gets popular?

9> So you think that is why "better" books are up for grabs on Goodreads? Because people are having to pay for them to get shipped upfront? I am not sure I buy that.

I think at this point it is new so the good books are just sitting there waiting for someone to be stupid enough to put in their CC# in hopes of maybe getting a book in the mail.

If it were bookmooch, good books (and by that I mean highly wishlisted books) still get listed but they get snapped up so quickly because of the wishlist feature. I should know, I stalk my wishlist all day long!

>12 Belladonna1975:

No, no. That's not what I'm saying. Bookmooch has a 1/1 point system. Goodreads isn't really doing a system at all, as I understand it.

Other services have tried points systems based on original price. Others have allowed you to set the points you'd get.

I've only been mooching for a couple of months, and I only got into it because of folks here on LT. I have to say that I love the 1/1 point ratio- books I no longer need or want can magically transform into those that I do for nothing more than the cost of media (or first-class) mailing? Great system!

I would also happily support such an effort here on LT but not with any surcharge involved...

11> No they dont specifically say what the surcharge is. Figures!

13> Ok I was confused because you said "Free or a 1/1 point system make people feel good about it, but it drives good books out of the system, leaving the crap. "

You meant that people feel good about using it so they do and then all that is left is the books that nobody wants..well, until they do. :)

I wouldn't want to be a part of a service where someone could arbitrarily just pick how many points they thought their books were worth either.

How would you base points on original price? Like 1 point for a $7.99 mass market, 2 points for a $15.99 quality paperback..and so on? Weird

I get the impression GR is using a third-party system to do the CC/shipping label part, so I'm sure they're paying for that, which is part of the fee you pay.

Goodreads isn't doing the 1/1, but they're using karma. Givers choose the receiver, which is different than MG.

How can we prevent evil people from leeching off others?
Goodreads Bookswap relies on a reputation system that we're calling "karma." When someone requests a book, the person who owns the book can take a look at the person's "karma stats" before deciding to send them the book. They will be able to see how many books the person has requested and received, and how many books they have offered to swap. The book owner can then decide if they'd like to give that person a book. Hopefully, generous people will find that they receive more books!

Since BookMooch keeps me in quite a few more books than I can read, I'll stick with it. I think if the GoodReads system works for them, then hooray, but I'll stick with what works best for me. The connection between BM and LT is a bonus.

I love this:

"It's good for the planet, and did we mention you get books for free"

and on the same page:

"Goodreads adds a "handling" fee to the USPS postage cost. This allows us to pay for proper engineering and quality customer support for the swap feature. We want you to have the best possible experience, and that requires a living, breathing human who you can contact if something goes awry."

Wait, so if something requires programming and customer support you can charge people more and call that "handling."

What a discovery! Tomorrow I plan to offer my programming services to local companies for "free," with a handling charge. I hear gardeners and teachers are also free too. Every service is.

Bogus, and, considering the general level of respect I have for them, I think it's really beneath them.

We try not to lie to people. And if we get even close, members go bananas—as they should. I hope Goodreads users do too, but I suspect not.

16- maybe a deal with a company like Endicia? Or one of the other ones out there?

18> "We try not to lie to people. And if we get even close, members go bananas—as they should. I hope Goodreads users do too, but I suspect not."

If the sheer number of books already listed there is any indication, I suspect not, as well.

It seems like Bookins to me.
http://www.bookins.com/
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Comparison_of_Book_Swapping_Websites

Some digging and it actually looks illegal. The FTC has rules about what you can call "handling," and the rules are stricter in California. Since they're not actually doing any shipping or handling—that's the whole point—it looks very dubious. If it were legal, they'd need to disclose it fully and exactly near the word "free." They don't disclose how much it is at all.

Just imagine if we called Early Reviewers or Member Giveaways "free," and charged a shipping and handling fee, even though all the shipping and handling were done by the publishers or members.

I think people would be at the barricades!

22: I know Canadian Early Reviewers were, when some got charged customs. _That_ was fixed quickly.

What does the GoodReads book-giver get? On BookMooch, the giver pays for shipping but gets the point. If I wanted to give away my books for nothing AND not pay shipping, I would donate them to the Salvation Army or something like that.

24> LOL carlym, it would certainly save on trips to the post office, huh?

Having the recipient pay shipping is, I think, a good idea. It solves the problem of members in Alaska or Uganda not getting sent anything.

26-agreed, that part is fair.

That's what I was wondering. Any books I want to give away for free I donate to Friends of the Library.

Interesting notion... perhaps someone can offer an update in a month or so to let us all know how it has progressed.

Tim (#26) USPS media mail is precisely the same rate to all 50 states, PR a few other territories and any APO, FPO address, similarly all countries outside of North America, from France to Uganda fall under the same rate structure (well, very close with 1st class internat, exactly the same with the flat rate packets so many of us use), so remoteness is not a restrictive factor when the sender is paying, in this sense.

So, shall we just copy them and make it free? I'd like to take them down in such an obvious thing.

I would have no objection - other than I like to use BookMooch when I can (although BM more recently seems to have a *very* limited number of books I want to mooch).

*striking this out because I find that I'm mooching more books from BM than I'm really aware of!*

18: I don't see how free + handling is any different than Member Giveaway?

>18 timspalding:

We don't charge anyone. If we did, we'd charge them and call it that, not claim we're charging "handling" when we aren't even touching the books! You actually have to justify handling costs legally. You can't just take some non-handling cost, like computer programming, and call it "handling."

I've watched the Goodreads swap pages this week to see what gets listed and checked some of the other trade sites for those books. There's no two ways about this. Goodreads became a major player in swap. They might even come out of this number one in swap sites.

They might even come out of this number one in swap sites.

:(

I looked at the GR swap today. It was very hard to resist not doing a swap when I saw a book I wanted (I resisted). They have a very clean display of swap book covers right in your face.

ETA: I don't think that people who use GR care that GR "charges" extra for the mailing.

I have been looking at it too and I have to admit, I have been very tempted to request a few books since there has been some REALLY good stuff available.

However, I don't like agree with the extra charges even if they aren't very much.

Plus, I can "spin" bookmooch to my husband by saying "But honey, I am not buying any books!" With GR and having to use my credit card, I don't think that would fly :)

How much is the charge at GR? Does anyone know? In using Bookins, I never objected to the charge which was a bit over 4 dollars. Bookins, like BookMooch uses a point system.

37: See message 4.

"Estimated price of shipping label: $3.97"

I don't see this as swap at all, but straight selling.

So, it's actually cheaper at GR than at Bookins (assuming a trade paperback under 1 lb and using media mail with delivery confirmation) which charges $4.49. It's a swap with a surcharge. They both make a profit on that surcharge. The bottom line is that it's affordable, easy, and (again) *in your face*. You don't go to another website from GR. You just look at the book you want, click, pay, print shipping label, and get the book. The more people that join GR, the more swap books that will become available. I understand Tim's reason for not doing swap *itself* on LT, but now GR is doing it. So what do we do? Stand by while we see that BookMooch (also free) doesn't have very much in the way of diverse inventory while the GR swap begins to grow? I see this as a potential problem for LT.

39: How would you want swap to run here?

I'm not saying that swap *should* run here. That's against what Tim wants for this site. I'm only saying that I see it as a problem in which both LT and GR are competing for members. The more features that appeal to *potential* members, the more people that might be swayed to join GR in lieu of LT. I don't mind growth in both sites. I don't want growth at GR at the expense of LT.

In other words, no solutions from me about this issue. Only remarks.

I agree with infiniteletters--this isn't swapping. You could do the same thing by selling your books for $.01 on half.com. I'm really puzzled as to why this is a popular feature on GoodReads.

I see it as a problem too. So, what do we do about it? Shall we do the same thing--minus the fees, I think. Or shall we do something different?

I'm tempted to feel that swapping books plays to their strengths with more casual readers, and against ours, to cataloging types. If you really want a top-notch system for cataloging your books, are you likely to want to swap a lot. I'm there there are many people who do, but I think it cuts against us somewhat.

Member Giveaway does exist as a shipping mechanism, but it doesn't cover shipping costs. After we get past shipping, then there's the question of availability and member reliability. Let alone book condition and lost books...

*If there was a page to see which of your books were on other's wishlists, then you could have the option to offer your book: "On Offer" or "Inventory". Since people would have to add their book to the wishlist, it would less likely to attract spam.
*A book seeker could have a way to say I'm interested in a copy of such-and-such-book or this type of genre.

I'd be interested in getting books from other people that I haven't yet been able to get from Bookmooch. These would tend to be older out-of-print books. I'm less interested in swapping for the newer books, as I can usually find them somewhere...

Two thoughts:

1. Maybe LT should focus on a swapping feature that gets at those harder-to-find stuff. For example, I'd love to trade a recent acquisition—a scholarly bibliography of the crusades—for something. But I don't that counted as equal to every other book in the world. Still less do I want to give that away for nothing. I'd expect that I'd have to get rid of a small raft of paperback editions of Harry Potter 1, for example, to get something really good.

But I don't know how to make that work. See discussion above. Nobody has.

2. My feeling is that, for some books, the primary value is in the sharing and proselytic aspect--connecting with someone by giving them something, especially something you've read or valued. This fact, which I think BM gets, and GR gets, runs counter to the idea in #1. It allows a certain sort of sharing to happen.

But is LT adapted for that sort of sharing? Or is there another way to do it that gives us something unique?

I came to LT for the cataloging. I stayed for the community. I only joined BM because I read about it here on LT. I have plenty of books in my library I know I will never give up. I have a selection that could go out the door tomorrow with a smile. I have some I suspect I might be willing to send to someone who passionately wanted it.

I would love to see LT have a checkbox that would indicate which books I am willing to swap or send. I am perfectly willing to do it for points that I can then use to get more books because I consider it an even trade to get rid of a book I don't want in exchange for one I do, even if the actual monetary value of the books is dissimilar.

Obviously there are books that folks will not want to swap, and books that no one would ever want to swap and that is great, but for those of us who would be willing to trade, it would be great to see this feature available here on LT.

I think one thing all the swap/trade sites do wrong is let the crap build up. I don't see what's wrong with not allowing new listings once an edition has reached a certain level, say 25 copies. Get in a line to list that kind of stuff if the supply drops below 25. Having all the sites loaded with the SOS does no one any favors.

I think one thing all the swap/trade sites do wrong is let the crap build up.

Decent used book stores avoid doing that. They pick and choose which books they know will sell. The rest they either refuse or discard. Hmmm? Is an idea is forming?

Can LT put a poll somewhere to gauge how many of its users are swappers? It would just measure participants in the poll but it might give a rough number of whether that number was hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands.

I do like VisibleGhost's suggestion that inventory be capped at say 25 copies of any given edition to help keep the clutter down.

>29 markwp:

all countries outside of North America, from France to Uganda fall under the same rate structure, so remoteness is not a restrictive factor

Well, you will be surprised how many people regularly ship to Europe, but tell me China is off limits.

51: No, I wouldn't. Idiots aren't going to go away without education though. :)

The trick is, there's no better system. Free or a 1/1 point system make people feel good about it, but it drives good books out of the system, leaving the crap. Doing it by original price is arbitrary and weird. Doing it by self-set points makes people fell like they're buying something.

Ann odd idea maybe:

If you do, at some point, decide to institute a free LT swap, could you accept only "juried" books? My example would include singletons (which might include crap) and books that are on someone's wishlist (indicating a more desirable book) up to the number of this book wished for. Of course, a database of this information would have to be created in order to let donors know which books are accepted into this swap and which are rejected. A donor could try more than once to donate his book, but it would always be rejected unless the above criteria are met.

My thoughts about this are that there would be at least one copy of each book that a donor would want and many copies of books that more people desire.

The advantages of such a system would be that the work page would let us know when a swap book was available and we'd have no multiple copies of "crap"!

Is this a coding nightmare? It sure sounds like it to me!!

I like the points value assigned by BookMooch because it does allow people all over the world to participate and doesn't deal with variables such as the price of a book and does set a standard for what is acceptable to swap.

I'm very happy with BookMooch (since LTers convinced me to move from Bookins to BookMooch) except for the lack of variety in the book offerings. I'd rather have a much smaller bpool of books from which to choose if I knew the those books would be the more desirable kind.

Just food for thought...

Oh yeah. Another important thing. Edition matters, for swapping. Binding, illustrations, coverart, etc.

What about more integration with BookMooch instead of creating a new system? For example, I'd love to have an easy and up-to-date way of seeing whether books on my LT wishlist are available on BookMooch (and not just on all swap sites generally). Or a button on a work page for me to add the book to my BookMooch wishlist.

It seems like there are so many swap sites out there already that creating more will only shrink the pool of available books on any one site.

It's interesting so many members are talking about BookMooch. I've been rooting for them forever, but they aren't the largest. Paperbackswap is far larger now.

another problem in adding swapping to LT, would be the referree-ing of "swaps gone bad"... with BM & PBS this is a major issue & takes a lot of time away from what really needs to be done...

Does Tim & Co really want to wear referee-ing striped shirts with the LT logo?

(and think of the maternity version of the striped shirt!!)

If LT were to start in on swapping, I'd much rather it follow BookMooch's model than PaperBackSwap's. PBS may have a wider selection of books, but their constant stream of irritating reminders and lack of community make me so much more partial to BM.

> 56

Isn't Paperbackswap US only?

>59 AnnieMod: Yup. BookMooch is (as far as I know?) the only international swap site. Someone please do correct me if I'm wrong.

>55 carlym:

You can put Bookmooch on the Quick links and it will tell you if it's available. Right now I browse books through LT, and then go to BM either to mooch it or to put it on my wishlist.

61: I meant being able to see the BookMooch availability when I look at my wishlist in list form, not when I click on an individual work (I wouldn't want to have to click on every book to see if it has become available).

56: Tim, I was thinking about the international angle, the existing cooperation with BookMooch, and BookMooch's general lack of commercialism (which would seem to make it easier to cooperate with), but the principle is the same no matter what swap site is discussed. Unless LT can do swapping better, it doesn't make sense to me to replicate an existing service.

>62 carlym:

Sense for whom. It looks to me like GR decided it was best to unite it all under one site. And they may well be right. We've been integrating with swap sites for years now, but this changes the game, maybe.

57: And the politics will make life interesting. Spam-swatting and ER "not received" is much quieter than lost books that involve money...

Paperbackswap is larger with the same type of statcounts that you were seeing in other threads. There's not a good way to measure webstats for international sites.

>64 infiniteletters:

I know their traffic is larger. Their stock is much larger too. See "Get this book" for almost anything.

I think a united site is a great idea. I use both BM and PBS- I like the community aspect of BM, but can't deny the attraction of the spot-in-line approach PBS takes for heavily wishlisted books.

66: Whereas I like the fact that if I see a (unreserved) copy, I can mooch it. Especially when this means I can get books for international members that they want.

>57 skittles: Vertical stripes are slimming, no?

If I'm not mistaken, GR swaps are shipped first class, not media rate.

What is the general rule there. Does everyone go media rate?

I go whichever costs less- sometimes that is First-class, sometimes it is media rate.

69, 70 I do whatever is cheapest as well.

Tim: so if you were to add swapping to LT, would you make it international?

I assume that GR swapping is US-only, is that right?

#72: Yeah, that's right, at least not available in Canada.

69: USPS 1st-class only exists up to 13 ounces. Plenty of books weigh more than that. If you don't use Media, most post offices encourage Priority.

Tim,

USPS media mail is less expensive if the book weighs more than 10 ounces, as it only costs $2.38 for the first pound and then 39 cents for each pound thereafter.

Most trade paperbacks and hardcovers do weigh more than 10oz. Individual mass masrket ior childrens' books generally weigh 3-8 oz.

Some hardocovers and most trade paperback books can fit in a $4.95 flat rate packet, but any larger textbook, art book , etc, will not come close to fitting, thus leaving media mail as they only affordable method.

Further, many ship multiple books, and the alternative of parcel post or priority mail (without the packet, by zone) costs several times the media mail rate.

So the great majority of domestic US Book trades are via media mail.

I would be quite surprised if a site such as GR hoping to profit from trading were to offer an international trading option, as this vastly complicates the trading process and also necessitates an extensive array of security features which are not cost effective, to say the least... Nor are the management of charity groups cost effective, as Bookmooch does.

Mark W
Bookmooch Team

>75 markwp:

What's the feeling over at BM?

Ok*** No Haters Please*** I broke down and tried the swap on goodreads it was $3.83 so I'm guessing the "handling charge" is $1.00 per book.Just because I ordered it DOES NOT mean I'm giving up BookMooch OR LibraryThing it was a heavily wishlisted book that I really wanted.I will let you know if "karma" comes and bites me in the butt or if it was worth it.
I really like BM and have gotten some great books on there and don't plan to change anything I do over there.Same goes for LT I love the community in LT,The Tags,The Collections(all of them).The Community on LT is great and I wouldn't leave!

66, 67 -

I like both, which is why I trade on both sites. There's no denying the adrenalin rush when you manage to get a heavily wishlisted book on BM. But I do like knowing that FIFO will do its thing and eventually my turn will come up at PBS. Still, I tend to reserve PBS for wishlisted books and the occasional box swap. I trade much more freely on BM, and for all the concerns about lack of inventory on BM I've honestly been surprised at how often I manage to get a book there that I was either in the back of the line for or didn't have the credits for on PBS. I do end up doing a lot more swaps on BM.

76: I don't think anyone at Bookmooch has noticed (or cared enough) to discuss. At least, there's no visible thread on the forums...

For the last 18 months this IS the BM forum :)

>77 susiesharp:

Susie, therein lies the problem. You were attracted to go to GR to use their swap site, but I seriously doubt if people are coming here to use LT as a bypass to get to another swap site. In addition, we LT members have to leave LT do do a book swap. It seems that now is the time for LT to have a piece of that (swap) action.

The two times I checked GR's book swap pages, I found something to request, but did not do so on principal alone (beside the fact that I don't desperately need more books!). I'll just patiently sit back and wait to see what Tim decides to do...

*reaches for a book that came today from BookMooch*

>81 SqueakyChu:

Wouldn't it make more sense to just integrate the sites a bit more tightly? Get a page that is on LT but that effectively gets you through BM and vice versa... From what I had seen so far, it does not seem like the sites owners are in any bad relationship...

Do not get me wrong - LT can add a swap feature if they want but I would much more prefer to see them dealing with the author pages issues and non-Latin symbols support or the search or anything else that makes LT a better cataloging site (list feature, edition level for works and so on and so on) before they go for building something that already exists and might require just a better integration...

PS: Talking from the position of a non-US member here - there is no swap site that I can use now besides BM...

>82 AnnieMod:

Wouldn't it make more sense to just integrate the sites a bit more tightly?

I don't know. BM is now only 1 click away from LT, but the two sites are very different. I must say that the way GR presents its book swap is a lot more enticing to browse than is BM's.

Depends on where you do your browsing... technically you can do it in LT even now and just follow the link to BM once you decided what you want...

83: "Enticing." How so?

GR's shows the covers of all the books available for swapping and has a sidebar with whats on your wishlist and available.I think thats what she means by enticing.

It sounds like GoodReads swap is nothing more then a slightly cheaper version of selling your books on Amazon, although I guess the book owner doesn't get anything from the exchange but GoodReads does. Which seems a bit weird. I mean if you wanted to get nothing for your book why not just donate it to a library or a charity, where you could at least get a tax break?

I love the BM model so far with a points based system. Although there isn't too much difference to me going to the PO to buy postage then giving my credit card over GR to pay for postage, the fact that BM are not taking a cut of anykind makes a whole lot of difference to me.

I'm on GR as well (though nowhere near as much as I'm here!) and the visual setup is enticing, especially to new users or more casual users who want a place to keep track of what they read. GR is also appealing because it has excellent integration with Facebook- that's where I first learned about it and that is still how I share info on what I'm reading with most of my IRL friends. Though I've tried telling them about LT, they prefer the ease of the GR/FB partnership.

As for swapping on LT, I already feel like I'm doing that because the majority of my BM interactions are with folks here on LT!

"enticing" - exactly what was described in mesages #86 and #88.

You can browse through large colorful book covers, each page having different books. The books are different each day I browse (unlike my recommendations on BookMooch which barely ever change or the BM real-time screen which barely has anything I like). There are no multiples of books that I can tell on the GR pages. There is always at least one book I would request if I decided to use Goodreads in addition to BookMooch and Bookins. I have now checked that swap page three days in a row.

Yep. It's still "enticing".

I agree squeaky there are alot of books on my BM wishlist available on there ...However I have yet to hear from the sender of the book I "swapped".**FingersCrossed**

I kind of like the idea of the requester paying the shipping cost up front. If it is an international site it would definitely allow for greater circulation of books. International users on Bookmooch sometimes refer to the US As a "black hole" for books... they go in but don't come out.

Perhaps conditional swaps might be nice as well. The type where you specify exactly what you are willing to trade for and not necessarily a point based thing. Say you have a duplicate in a set of books and are looking to complete it.. you can post "I have BookA looking to trade for BookB or BookC" This would allow for better "weighted" trades as well.. so you aren't trading a rare or unusual book for the same rate as a mass market paperback.

I love Bookmooch and have been swapping there for several months now.. Ive gotten/given about 50 books total so far, but Ive noticed that certain types of books almost never show up. I'm betting its because they are worth more to their owners than the single point they would generate.

I have been on Bookmooch for almost a year now and I have been very pleasantly surprised by some of the books that I have been able to mooch.

Just the other day I was able to mooch a brand new hardback copy of Of Bees and Mist which I have really been wanting to read. It just came out and I am already getting a copy for essentially "free". That is just crazy to me!

Don't get me wrong, there have definitely been some dry spells where I don't have anything pop up available on my 1000+ wishlist, but more often than not, I am able to find some really good stuff. (of course, I do stalk my wishlist like a starving cheetah stalks a gazelle so that might have something to do with all of my luck at finding books I want)

I have to say that the reason I prefer the pnts system is because of my experience in other kinds of swapping. People will put their stuff up with a limited criteria ie I will swap X but only for A, B or C so if you don't have any of those you can't swap. For the swapper it also limits the likely hood of them ever getting a swap.

In general I'm over the whole swap for swap system it's just too much work. Perhaps I got lucky in that the majority of my books were snapped up quite quickly so I was able to build up a decent (I think anyway) points base to start my own Mooching right away. I've been happy with it so far.

As for paying for the postage. I'm not against the receiver paying the shipping. In my case that would actually help me send my books out faster. However, I think the book sender should get something in return for listing the book and taking the time to ship it. Not to mention the fact that perhaps at some point you've spent money on that book so getting something in return makes up for it. Otherwise its like selling you book but for ZERO currency. If there are no points or other incentive to the sender I don't see the appeal. At least for me, obviously there are people on there sending out books this way. If there was someway to build up a credit or something so that you could then request books and get reduced shipping without it negatively effecting the sender i.e. the credit comes out of the websites pocket since they are charging a fee.

I really don't like the idea that some people might hold books for a better swap because they think that book is valuable i.e. either because it was an expensive book, a rare edition or it's extremely popular but hard to get used. If a book is that important to you perhaps you shouldn't swap it. If you're using it as leverage to get something more than the standard pts it just doesn't seem fair to someone who might really want to read that book. The points system is quite egalitarian and that really appeals to me. Perhaps the GR method is as well but I see there is more room for price gauging on shipping. I'm not saying people do that on purpose but if it's automatic it can quite easily happen.

For me I've listed and will continue to list books that either I've read and am not particularly sentimental about or things people have given me that I probably won't read. I happy to get the points that I get and thankful for extra ones for international mooches because they cost a bit more to send out.

I wouldn't mind seeing LT partner more with BM somehow by adding a few features to each site so they are a bit more integrated so you perhaps you could swap books directly from your LT libraries and use your LT wishlist to keep an eye out for books you want. Obviously the community is already here so it seems quite natural for the two to become more "fused" in a way.

I'm not saying that weighted trades should be the only way to go... but it would definitely increase the types of books seen if you weren't valuing a copy of say Gray's Anatomy the same as a generic harlequin romance.

Bookmooch is great for swapping mass market books... but Id like to see a more balanced swapping option for books that I want to get rid of but remain on my shelf because they would cost me more to send out than I'm willing to spend. You could look at it his way as well - 3lbs of textbook vs 8oz of paperback - should they both cost 1 point?

You can always smooch someone some points if they send you bigger books...

I like the 1 point per book system (for me it is almost always 2 points per book because there are only 7 or so people from Bulgaria on BM but that's not the point). Once you win, once you loose. At the end of the day, your average point price is what matters... I need space on my shelves and have books that someone wants? Off they go -- regardless of how much I spend on sending them - someone will be happy on getting them. And I can get myself another book :) Someone could make the same argument for new books or for rare books... There is no way to make a perfect system...

Im not in any way proposing they change Bookmooch. I like it for trading Paperbacks but that is all I ever seem to see on it.

The other types of books I want almost never show up there. IE Cookbooks, graphic novels, art books, etc...

If Tim is going to put swapping in LT it would be nice if there were other swapping options that would encourage these often larger and more "valuable" (whether it be monetary or cost to ship) books to appear.

>96 Emidawg:
I have at least 2 hardcovers coming to me at BM at the moment... So it is not just paperbacks...

I have received all sorts of wonderful books on BookMooch, including some hard-to-find books that would have cost more than a few dollars at a used book store. It just takes time/patience and attention to my wishlist.

What I don't understand is why people would give away more valuable books through a system like GoodReads has. The giver gets nothing, right? None of the shipping/handling charge, no points, no promise of receiving another book? I can see where the prepaid shipping would make people more willing to send heavier books (or to send books internationally), but not more valuable books.

I have a feeling that the various college texts I've received from BookMooch folks would never have become available via GoodReads "swap".

I just clicked on GoodReads' non-fiction category for available books and one of the first titles that comes up is The Da Vinci Code.

Yeah, ok.

I've put newer hardcovers and heavy, more expensive books on my inventory, and received several like new hardcovers and hard to find out of print books as well. The point of BookMooch is that that book you're putting up in your inventory has little value to you, but has enormous value to the moocher. The BookMooch system is wonderfully egalitarian.

I would be happy to see a greater connection between BM and LT, but since I use the two sites for different reasons, I'm happy with the status quo.

We've been talking this over a lot internally. We are faced with a few choices:

1. Do nothing
2. Zig
3. Zag

Doing nothing is easiest. We could integrate more with others. But integrating with them as we already do has been painful. I don't expect big things there. Working with other people is hard. Success no longer depends on how well you do something. As much as I admire BM and their approach, this can't be their priority, they're smaller than PBS, and if rolling out new features were super-easy, they wouldn't be using LT as their forum system.

Zig would be to copy them. (Considering how much they copy from us, I'll have no guilt there!) Basically, we turn member giveaways around—or make it optional to do so—and make recipients pay shipping. Add some browsing and hey presto we've got the feature.

Zag would be do something different from them, like a points system, or leveraging all our local-ness. (There's a thread about true local swapping, and I'm still intrigued.)

102: Another thing you could do is work on promoting Member Giveaway and Early Reviewers (86/88/89). There could be recommendations of books you might like, especially if they were books on your cataloged wishlist.

I'm not sure about the other things you mentioned yet. *ponder*

My vote would be do nothing, or greater integration of books that are available for swapping. How about adding a small available icon next to books that are available to swap in a members book recommendation page?

I like LibraryThing, because it looks professional, its easy to use, and doesn't have all the extra fluff that GoodReads has. I tried GoodReads, and found it rather annoying and unprofessional. I kept getting email announcements from them even after I elected to stop. I finally had to close the account entirely. If LibraryThing started adding features just to keep up with GoodReads, I don't think I would enjoy LibraryThing as much.

I also would wait and see if the GoodReads book swapping program actually works - From the description given here, it looks like it could easily be abused.

103: I agree with that. Many of LT's great features are not promoted on the home page that potential members see--LibraryThing Local, automatic recommendations, etc. I think GR is just packaging their features in a more attention-grabbing way.

BM has a forum system Tim, yours is just better than the one at BM right now, so more people use this one. There is a fully integrated forum system in development.

My sense is that as the online barter movement continues to expand, each trading site will grow, some faster than others at times, based on advertising and promotion among other factors.

Charging people for something that they can get for free is rarely a successful strategy for any web endeavor, unless something distinctly new is being offered. PBS appears to have been considering charging all members, and some think their wave of self-promotion over the last year has been tied to this.

I believe the strength of Bookmooch lies in its distinctive features: international trading, the ongoing support of a few hundred international charity groups, a community ethos, arts projects (journals), among others. Further, Bookmooch takes a general approach of treating members as adults by trusting them to send books on their own, allowing them to leave feedback, and generally not pestering them to do everything in a rigid framework, which to some degree would be necessitated by trying to operate a profitable enterprise as others are, either through selling points or charging for each trade. Of course some prefer the more regimented model.

There are at least a dozen active trading sites at this point, my thought is that 4-5 will have staying power and this will largely be determined by offering something others are not, and IMHO, by not charging for something others are offering for free. Each new site will bring in a number of trading newbies, but those that trade the most regularly will likely try a few of the other sites in time and gravitate towards the site that works best for them; so new sites and those that more actively self-promote will have peaks of new members, but I think the sites the are able to grow steadily and retain long term members while still drawing in new members will be among those that survive and thrive over the long term.

PBS appears to have been considering charging all members, and some think their wave of self-promotion over the last year has been tied to this.

What do you mean?

... determined by offering something others are not, and IMHO, by not charging for something others are offering for free

This is part of the reason GR irritates me. They're calling it free and charging "shipping and handling" for items they neither ship nor handle.

This is just a speculation post. The trade program Goodreads initiated might have come from the investor side. That is, the money people said there needed to be another revenue stream besides advertising. Thus the fee on trades. I'm not sure but I don't think LT has the same revenue stream pressure Goodreads does.

I am in the do nothing camp. I admit book swapping just doesn't do it for me. I tried it for a while -- too much work.

I think that LT should stick with the core functions. There are already book swap sites out there, and as said above, we don't know if GR's will work. Perhaps making the ties between LT and BM closer, since so many use it here.

It seems that there will be a lot of administrative stuff, in terms of chasing lost/missing books, dealing with unhappy swaps with such a feature; not to mention the time for coding of something new, installing it and fixing the bugs.

Which brings me to my next point. I realize LT has to keep improving so as not to fall behind, but it seems that there are lot of issues that people actually want finished/fixed, and there has been talk about redoing: search, CK, data structures.

So what gets thrown out if LT goes off in this new direction (since you have limited resources) ?

It seems new work is always more interesting than finishing/fixing old stuff.

We had a long public discussion at BM about the growth in PBS membership. There was a short period of mentions on major media, Google adverts, etc... which were placed at the time of PBS growth, so it was clear that there was a connection. It was, of course, less clear if their investment had been profitable for them or not. BM had its most pronounced period of growth (by far) following unsolicited but quite glowing articles in the New York Times, SF Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, etc... Bartering through the Internet is new enough that any publicity brings in curious new members, but as I've mentioned, it is each sites distinctive features that compels people to stay over time.

I agree, GR seems all-too-aware of the delicacy of charging for trading, and have thus chosen their tactic of 'handling' fees. I believe some US states limit how such fees can be determined, and that GR have not fully considered this, time will tell. The literate/cataloging demo is a bit smarter than they have estimated methinks, and will see the truth of what they are doing in an unfavorable light.

I agrre with #108. When a company receives venture capital funding, there would have been a business proposal outlining growth in future profitability, and this fee would almost certainly have been featured in that.

I think once the shiny newness wears off, people will start thinking about why they are sending books for nothing and then paying to receive. It seems a lot of bother to wrap up and mail a book and not get anything but the satisfaction of doing it in return. I suppose that is what Member Giveaways is all about, but at least that is honestly named: Member Giveaways.

I predict GR's swap feature will bomb.

I am a member of both Bookmooch and Paperbackswap. If Paperbackswap were to start charging a fee to their members I would be out of there. I have had luck on both these two sites and have no wish to try any of the others. There are features I like on BM and features I like on PBS. Each site has their strengths and weaknesses. I like it that I am one in the queue for a number of books that I am interested in. I am guaranteed the book depending how far up in the queue I am. With BM it is a hit and miss deal. If I am viewing my list at the right precise moment I will be able to snag a book that I am far down in the queue at PBS. I don't like it that PBS nags me all the time. I accepted to mail a book on Friday even. I live in a smaller town and the PO is not open but two hours on Saturday. I can't get there in time to mail the book. I do have a life you know. By Sunday afternoon PBS is already nagging me asking me if I have mailed the book yet. They will continue to nag me until I mark it mailed. If the weather is bad on Monday then I may not get it mailed until Tuesday. Seems like PBS gets all the publicity.

Haven't had a good mooch on BM for several weeks. I'm hoping after Christmas that will pick up. Some people just don't have the money to mail books the weeks before Christmas. I'm hoping I'll be able to snag some BM books come January. I have a dozen points burning a hole in my pocket. I'm hoping people will get rid of books on their shelves to make room for books they have gotten for Christmas.

I think many serious traders (i.e. most on this forum) do as Kay does and belong to multiple sites. This is probably the best way to balance the strengths and weakness of each site, and as she suggests, would probably deflate any attempt for one site to try try and charge all members while the others remain free..

This is just a speculation post. The trade program Goodreads initiated might have come from the investor side. That is, the money people said there needed to be another revenue stream besides advertising. Thus the fee on trades. I'm not sure but I don't think LT has the same revenue stream pressure Goodreads does.

Yes, this seems quite clear. They don't have much in the way of revenue, clearly. At some point, they need to show it, or enough of a possibility of it that an investor can imagine it will happen in the future.

So what gets thrown out if LT goes off in this new direction (since you have limited resources) ?

No, I think that's well put. It's always priorities.

It seems new work is always more interesting than finishing/fixing old stuff.

It is. But that's not what's driving me here. What's driving my question her is concern, and opportunity.

I agrre with #108. When a company receives venture capital funding, there would have been a business proposal outlining growth in future profitability, and this fee would almost certainly have been featured in that.

A business proposal? You're so 1990!

If Paperbackswap were to start charging a fee to their members I would be out of there...

So, what's their model anyway?

>115 timspalding: So, what's their model anyway?

They sell credits, gift certificates, access to various tools on their site (like a book journal thing), and other stuff here.

Okay, noted Tim, I shall avoid the term if you say it is no longer fashionable :)

#116 it is this phrase displayed when one signs up to PBS that got people talking:

"At present, Site membership is free, but we may institute a charge at some point in the future to defray the cost of providing this valuable service."

But I have no idea when or if they plan to starting charging all members or have just added this phrase to limit complaints if they ever do so.

I'll be gone if they charge for the "valuable service" other sites (like BM!) offer for free!

I like LT and BM.
What I would like to see improved on BM is their system for finding books. There may be plenty of books on BM that I would be interested in, but I don't know they are there. There is no way ro really search for anything unless you have an author's name or a book's name.

How can LT integrate? By allowing us to use tags, our wish lists in LT or some other function to search BM. I would love to have all my info on one site (LT) and be able to use that info to search for things on BM.

Maybe then, people who use BM only would be interested in using LT. Or people looking for a catalogue and a swap site would be more interested in LT.

BM's biggest downfall is their lack of search funtion. It is not a very dynamic site.

I think like the points system that BM uses. I don't care if the book I send out costs more than the book I get. When I want to get rid of a book I am happy to give to anyone who wants to read it.

But I do have a bunch of points sitting in my account that I don't really use because I don't know what books to ask for. I have over 3,000 books on my list of books I might want to read someday. I am not entering all of those into BM. I have not done it on LT either. That is a lot of typing.

If LT did decide to create their own swapping system I would like it to be like BM. Except with the functionality of LT.

PBS had a survey, in the last 6 months or so, for random members. It was very clear from the survey that they were exploring charging members.

>119 jmaloney17: - What I do in most cases is just opening a book that I like and start going through the recommendations. In most cases I just see something that I like :)

--> 102

I'd like to do "Zag" because, from your response, Tim, that is what seems of most interest to you. I like using a points system very much and have been pleased with the way the points system functions both on Bookins and on BookMooch. I've switched to BookMooch because you promoted it and it's cheaper.

Oddly enough, I've been informally swapping books on LT by sending some of my already-read books to LT "friends" and sometimes these friends do the same for me. These are not trashy paperbacks. These are books that I value that I send to people I value. I simply check their wishlists to know what to send. For lack of a swap feature here, I often use BookMooch, but not always.

I'd like to hear more of your ideas for a "local swap" and would be up for trying something different (although I'm not sure what that would be).

I'm interested that some members are on Bookins. The numbers I see—total books and traffic—don't support much optimism about them. Are they masking something I'm not seeing?

I don't know about Bookins, but it might be a bit misleading to look at the numbers here and see them as representing something important. I think a lot of people here are "hardcore" bookswappers; they're probably on Bookins because they're on all three sites, not because it's better than PBS or BM. To them it might be simply an additional option (read: long shot) for getting more books. But a Bookins person could probably explain this better.

I'd been a Bookins member, but switched to BookMooch because the cost was cheaper. I still remain a Bookins member because they have better books to offer than BookMooch does. If they offer a book that I really want and can't get elsewhere, I'm willing to pay what they want. However, I probably will not use them much anymore because I know I don't have to pay their price for used books. BookMooch books are media mail rate within the U.S. My local Friends of the Library used book
stores sell wonderful books (paperback and hardcover) for only $2-3. For less wonderful books (but also a surprising number of great books), I can also get free books from The Book Thing of Baltimore or from my Bookcrossing friends.

My guess is that Bookins is not masking anything. I also would venture to guess that they added DVDs and even more offerings (toys, etc.) to gain market share. This gimmick actually makes them less appealing to me.

There is another thing that Bookins does that I really don't like at all. They sometimes give free points (for holidays, for example) which, in effect, makes you *have to* pay to take a book that you requested. For that reason, I don't keep anything on my "wanted" list on Bookins any more.

In favor of Bookins, though, they run a nice website and give prompt, courteous customer support.

I think that any website that wants to *make a good profit* on bookswapping alone is ultimately doomed. There is too much competition out there in the field of used books.

Ooo! The Book Thing!

♥!

#s 125 and 126

I've been wondering about The Book Thing. Would be a 2 1/2-3 hour drive each way for me - is it worth the trip? Is there a bigger selection at some times than others?

I'm still mourning the loss of Leary's Book Store in Philadelphia, forty years later.

>127 freecyclor::

It is a bit of a drive for visiting just that. While I nearly always find at least one fabulous thing each time I go, it all depends on the luck of the day.

I lived in Baltimore for years, and I still visit the Book Thing now that I live in Philadelphia... but I'll plan my trips to the city in order to visit friends or to attend some city event and 'just' swing by the Book Thing on the way. (I do this with Beltway Liqueurs, too.)

If you do make the drive, keep in mind that the building is neither heated nor air conditioned. I find it easier to browse in the winter time, wearing a coat and hat, than in the summer time, when the place is so hot and stuffy. And there are a lot of books, so browsing everything can take me hours.

I would have loved to visit Leary's, but I moved up to Philly long after it closed.

>127 freecyclor:

I agree with 128, that it's much too long of a drive for The Book Thing alone. Sometimes they have a few good picks; sometimes nothing at all that I like. It takes me about 50 minutes by car to get there. I usually come away with about 25 to 50 books which I then register with Bookcrossing and distribute for free at book fairs. Sometimes I even find some great books which get tossed into my TBR pile or are given to friends (who have those certain book wishlisted). It's all chance. The Book Thing is only open on weekends.

Why not make plans to do something else in Baltimore that day and only spend the morning browsing in The Book Thing? Later you can head off for another planned venue for the rest of the day. In this way, you won't be disappointed. A fellow Bookcrosser from Philadelphia does this all the time. She visits her favorite Baltimore restaurant after she completes her Book Thing visit.

>129 SqueakyChu::

The Philly-Balto pathway seems to get a lot of book-related traffic. I feel like there ought to be a carpool option, except for the inherit problem of needing to fit people and boxes of books in the car.

Philly-Balto-DC, actually, come to think of it with all the book festivals added in.

Do you mind telling which restaurant is your friend's favorite? I love going to Bertha's Mussels, but I like eating there best when I'm with a small group (god. With that gelato place down the corner? mmmm) -- it isn't as much fun for solo dining.

ETA >127 freecyclor:: Oh, the link to the Book Thing might be helpful to you.

OOO Bookthing....too bad I live in Oklahoma. That would be quite a roadtrip!

The food is very good, but the ambience is not that great. It's Kosher Bite* on Reisterstown Road. Bertha's Mussels (in food type) is about as far away from Kosher Bites as you can get! :D

*Plus, it's nowhere near The Book Thing.

When I go with my Bookcrossing group to The Book Thing, we usually go to the Panera Bread (a chain of good, but not great food, nice coffee though) on York Road in Towson, Maryland. You pass a Daedalus Books along the way there. Now *that's* a very fun book store. All new remaindered books at about $4 each. Worth a visit, I'd say.

I know Daedalus! If I drive into to Baltimore early enough and have time to kill before the Book Thing opens, I like to stop in Belvedere Square to get breakfast at Greg's Bagels.

There you go! That's a trip worth taking. Bring a few "book buddies" along and you'll have such fun.

I know Belvedere Square! Isn't that at Belvedere Road and York Road? If so, I want to try Greg's Bagels.

To make it more fun, arrange an LT Meet-Up at Greg's Bagels!!

Oh...and to get back on topic...bring some books to swap!

Tim did say he wants to try local swapping. :)

Yup! There's lots of quirky shops there too that are great for browsing, but they don't usually open until later in the day. If you are coming to Belvedere from York, you can find Greg's tucked in a corner off to your left, just a shop or two past Daedalus and several shops before Atwater's Market.

Mmm. Now I'm hungry.

ETA: That's a fun idea! A day in the summer when the weather was nice would be ideal, when we could loiter at the tables outside.

The best way to do it, I think, would be a leisurely browse at The Book Thing in the morning. Then comes a couple hours of eating, drinking coffee, and talking books at Greg's. Last, it's off to Daedulus to browse before heading for home.

When we do something similar in my Bookcrossing group, we have no hard and fast deadline of times. We just intersect at the various places at various times of the day. It works out perfectly for everyone's schedule as we, too, come from many locations (Maryland, DC, Pennsylvania, and Virginia).

ETA: It is indeed lots of fun.

I'm making note of this for making plans come summer. This could be very neat.

Sounds like a springtime trip. Not too hot or too cold. Thanks, all!

Belvedere square is right around where the Senator theater is in Baltimore correct? There is a place near there called Atwaters that has all sorts of good things to eat. Have also eaten at the Irish restaurant there ... Ryan's Daughter or something along those lines.

Bookthing is great, Ive been there a few times. Once when it was in this teensy little place you could barely squeeze into for all the books stacked all over the floor.

Prepare to spend a LOT of time there. They dont alphabetize or arrange the books in any way other than *vaguely* by genre. Its like a great big scavenger hunt.

Make sure you take someone else who likes books with you... I had my SO with me and he stood around bored while I perused... I would have spent longer but he was getting antsy :(

Madeline asked me to post some comments I made on my thread. I haven't read previous comments yet, so my apologies if what I say is off topic or redundant.

First, I looked at Bookmooch titles once and didn't see anything I wanted. I could foresee getting a bunch of credit and not having anything I wanted to use them on.

I have not had good luck at all with clubs or groups where I got "credit" for providing some object or service to others (e.g., cookies, books, quilt squares, babysitting, volunteer/work hours) and ever getting anything back when it was my turn to receive. Though sometimes it was my own fault, I'm always the one left with the useless credit. No thanks! I would rather make one-to-one exchanges or just give away stuff I don't want.

What might work for me, would be for everyone who's interested to have a "willing to trade" list in their book collections that would "connect" with people's "wish lists" so that when I added a book to my wish list, I could see member names who were willing to trade that book. I could then look at their wish list to see if I had something to trade. If I knew a person, I could PM them and make a trade on my own. That could save on a lot of back-and-forth conversations about what we might have/want to trade. I would even be willing to give away books to LT friends with the idea that "what goes around, comes around" but I don't want to deal with any credits.

Besides the problems I've had with having too many useless/unused credits, I've heard enough Bookmooch stories about people having to wait weeks to get books, or not getting them at all. I'm too impatient for all that.

What bonniebooks said is what I've been informally doing here at LT for quite a while. I've found "friends" to whom I occasionally send books based on their LT wishlist or their forum comments. In return, I've gotten some books from other LT friends. This works better for me than Member Giveaway because I can *choose* to whom to send my books.

The cost is minimal to send most trade paperback s (at least for media mail within the United States). Using Paypal online, even with delivery confirmation, the cost to ship a thin paperback is less than three dollars.

I really don't know how to keep the cost down for international mailers, but, like Tim said, perhaps local swaps could be arranged in other countries so that in each of the many swap areas to be set up, mailing costs could be kept down.

Sometimes I use BookMooch to swap, but not always. Some LT members to whom I've sent books are simply not members of BookMooch or, like bonniebooks, don't want to deal with credits.

Thinking...
Maybe we could set up a friends swap. Once we have listed a trusted "friend", we would arrange our swaps with these people.

I've been doing something similar for the many years I've been involved with BookCrossing. BookCrossing is *not* a book trading site, but over the years, I have traded books with other Bookcrossers. They have what is known as a RABCK (random act of BookCrossing kindness) in which a person sends a book from a second person's wishlist to that person, sometimes even as a surprise. Basically, what goes around, comes around. Since I've started giving away books, I've only tended to accumulate more of them. The "kick" with Bookcrossing is that I get a journal entry emailed to me each time a new reader makes a journal entry for a book that was formerly mine. That gives my old books new life.

There has got to be some way we can formalize moving our books (if we want to) back and forth to each other *within* LT. We have the ability to read the wishlists of others. We know what books we wish to give away. We can often see in what jurisdictions others live. We have private messaging capability. Sometimes we even get to meet other LT members in real life. How can we set up a way to share our books among ourselves?

I invite comments and hope we can make it happen here.

Apologies for such a long post.

2 Successful "swaps" on goodreads and really I get just the book I want for $3.67..I mailed out a bunch of books from BM and it cost me alot more than that.So I am using both services now.

How do the books you sent out on Bookmooch cost you more than that? I've only ever spent more than $3 if I was sending internationally, and the way that you get an extra 1/10 of a point for listing books and confirming them received, I've mooched more than I've sent.

Yes $3.00 a piece but if you are sending out say for example 5 books plus an international your talking over $20.00.I do like BM and have gotten some really good books on there but the books I "swapped" for (nothing extra special- not 1st editions or anything) but both are heavily wishlisted on BM and your chances of getting them are pretty slim,so I was happy to find them for that cheap.I'm definetly not saying anything bad about BM just stating that I did have good luck with the GR swap program.

>but if you are sending out say for example 5 books plus an international your talking over $20.00

And you are getting 15 points so it is still under $3 per book...

Yes you are right about the points but the points don't help me if the books I want don't ever show up.

That's true but you complained about how much does it cost, not that books do not show up on BM :)

Sorry for that didn't mean to complain .

Susie you are making it hard for me to resist!! There is a book way up on my wishlist that is just sitting there on GR waiting for my 4 dollars!! :)

I am glad that your 2 trading experiences so far were positive.

It seems good for the receiver, but I still can't figure out the giver's motivation.

That doesn't make much sense to me either, even being the Bookcrosser that I am. I much prefer BookMooch's free system that uses points. I don't mind paying postage because I know that I'm swapping my postage for book points towards "free" books.

If I were going to mail a book to someone, it would need to be a RABCK (Random Act of Bookcrossing Kindness) which we do on Bookcrossing or at least be sending my book to someone I "know" (in the online sense). I tried the LT Member Giveaway and found no satisfaction in using it to give away free books, either.

oh SqueakyChu, I'm sad you didn't enjoy the LTMG experience (especially as I was the lucky recipient of The Wasp Eater). I certainly liked getting that book (though I admit I had to put it down halfway through because I was afraid it was heading to a dark place and I wasn't in the right frame of mind at the time). I actually pulled it off the shelf this weekend to pick back up and thinking about how it was an LTMG book made me smile...

Colleen, you were *the only one* who responded to the books I gave away on LT. I appreciate that. For me, that makes it worthwhile, but others never even responded that the books were received. In BM, a person at least gets credit for responding that a book has been received. Usually, it's a word of thanks.

*Elsewhere on LT, I'd been complaining that no one responded, but I erred because I do remember your responding since you're from my local area.

SqueakyChu, how does LTMG works? It appears to me that for any given giveaway, there are tons of requesters. That's why I never look farther than that.

For LTMG, the giver posts the book. The winner is selected by LT lottery. LT notifies the giver who the winner is and where to send the book. The winner giver pays the postage and mails the book.

It doesn't hurt to request an LTMG
book. You may feasibly win one.

ETA: Correction as noted above. Thanks, qforce.

The winner gets to pay the postage and mail the book

You mean "the giver", don't you? Otherwise, how can the winner do that?