BookMooch

I urge you all to visit one of my favourite web-sites, BookMooch:

http://www.bookmooch.com

When I say all, I actually mean all of you who read books, have a number of books you no longer want, have some books that you’d like to read, and don’t mind posting some books.  If you don’t meet those criteria then you probably won’t be interested in a book swapping web-site.

BookMooch works in a very simple way.  You join for free, and list any books that you no longer want (and recieve 0.1 points for each one you list).  Then you create a wishlist of books that you want.  Other users mooch books from the ones you have listed, and you get a point for each one (or 3 points if you send them to another country).   You can then use your acquired points to mooch books from others (1 point per book, or 2 points to get one from abroad).  It’s a great way to turn books you don’t want to those you do, for the price of postage.

I won’t pretend that you will get every book that you want right away – not unless you only want John Grisham and Stephen King novels.  You’re dependent on others giving away stuff you’re interested in, and there’s a good chance that a whole bunch of people will also be waiting for it.  I maintain my wishlist at about 150 books, just to give myself a better chance of being successful.  That said, I joined on 3rd January 2008 and have mooched 50 books, which I think is a pretty reasonable return.

Anyway, stop reading this now and go join up. You might have something I want to mooch.