PaperBack swap

PaperBack Swap is the best thing on the face of this planet. Basically, you put books you no longer need/want on your bookshelf, and when others request it from you, you spend around $2 to mail it to them. You will then receive a credit and can use it to request books you want from other members at no charge to you except for that original postage charge.

As part of the declutter challenge, I ended up putting 45 books on my bookshelf for others to request, and decided to get 2 books with my free credits. Upon signing up and posting 10 books you get 2 credits. I requested a book for myself, and a book for my husband. He's going through the Sword of Truth series and wanted me to get him the rest of the books - well, I looked around online and the cheapest I could get the remaining 5 books for were at an average of $10/piece including shipping. With Paperback swap, we're getting them at the average rate of $2.50.

Today I actually received my first book: "The Samurai's Wife" by Laura Joh Rowland. I just finished the preceding book "The Concubine's Tattoo", so this book came perfectly in time. It's in perfect condition too - the spine isn't broken, no marks that I can see...just perfect.

I love this site and I wish I found it earlier. I find it even better than going to the library. You can request books right from your own home, no due dates to worry about, and you have the option to keep the book if you want to! If you don't, well, just put it on your bookshelf and put it back into the cycle! It's awesome.

You can choose to mail the books directly from home too, since they have an option of printing postage right on your label. I'm choosing to go and mail them at the post office - I'm not confident in my calculating abilities when it comes to postage, and we have a post office right on base that we have to pass to get home anyway.

So if you're not a member yet - go join! You won't be sorry that you did!