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Press & Media >Metro
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April 3, 2006
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Trade Paperbacks
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By Katy Weber
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Bookins makes free online book swaps fun and easy
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OLD BOOKS can be a pain. Once your shelves are overloaded, they're hard to get rid of. The local librarian never wants them, and the used-book seller sneers at your paltry and unsophisticated collection before offering pennies per book. Swapping with friends is a good idea, but eventually you run out of books, or friends — or both.
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Outstanding Numbers
Enter the online book swap. The selection of books is astounding, and the sheer number of eager readers waiting to get their hands on your old paperbacks can be awe-inspiring. Most of the sites are free to members, only charging the shipping costs to the recipient.
The downside? Most of them involve an awful lot of work. Are you supposed to schlep all the way to the post office, stand in line and pay postage just so some English student in Wyoming can have your beloved hardcover copy of "Mumford: A Life" for free? I don't think so.
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How it works
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Bookins members create a wish list of books they want and a trade list of books they're willing to give away.
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The automated system constantly searches for matches between members. Each book has a point value, which is determined by the book's popularity or initial price.
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Members earn points whenever they send books and spend points whenever they receive books. This system encourages members to have desirable books on their trade lists — the more people want your books, the more you get in return.
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Automated Confirmation
Now, however, there's an online swap community for even the laziest of bibliophiles: Bookins.com. They handle everything. Once you've established your wish list, they contact the book's owner for you, they confirm the date the book was sent and they even confirm the delivery of the package. Other sites like paperbackswap.com and frugalreader.com require the traders to contact each other and to confirm themselves when a book has been sent or received, which is unreliable and slows the whole process down.
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No post office visits
Most importantly, Bookins allows you to print postage directly off the site and, regardless of the book's size, you simply drop it in the nearest mailbox. This makes the process remarkably quick and easy. Other sites require that you take books directly to the post office if they weigh more than 1 pound.
The site's founder, Mitchell Silverman, who started the service to get rid of the piles of books overcrowding his New York apartment, says he wanted to make sure Bookins was the easiest possible method for people to swap books online.
"I figured there's got to be an easier way," he said. "So I focused on what prevents people from exchanging books in the first place."
The site approached USPS and arranged for Bookins to act as an agent on behalf of the post office. The postal carriers scan the address labels when they pick up the books, and scan them again when they've been delivered. The postal service charges Bookins a flat rate of $2.99 to ship each book, and the site in turn charges members $3.99 per book. If the book gets lost, Bookins credits both parties for the shipment.
The selection on Bookins is currently smaller than the more popular swap sites — Bookins has about 15,000 books in their system, while a site like paperbackswap.com boasts more than 420,000 books. But Silverman insists the site, which debuted last August, is growing steadily.
"We're very competitive, and I'm hoping the site will continue to snowball," he said. "The more people use the site, the more theyl'l see how convenient it is compared to others."
If word gets around to the lazy book lovers among us, then Bookins may have stumbled on a goldmine.
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Metro is the largest and fastest growing international newspaper in the world. 64 daily Metro editions are published in 91 major cities in 19 countries in 18 languages across Europe, North & South America and Asia. Metro has a unique global reach - attracting a young, active, well-educated metropolitan audience of more than 18.5 million daily readers and more than 37 million weekly readers. Metro has an equal number of male and female readers and 70 percent are under the age of 45.
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