So far, I've received about 30 book requests from paperbackswap, and I will have spent about two bucks shipping each book. My credits should be rolling in soon. As I packed each one up, I had a fear that my pristine condition books would be re-sold by enterprising swappers. From a recycling standpoint, that's fine, but from a personal standpoint, it doesn't feel right. Then I realized that everyone who swaps has to first post books to send themselves. Then I thought that a lot of the posted books are crap, so our enterprising swapper would only have to post junk books no one wants, scour the site for relatively new and in-demand books (with a specially devised computer program even) then re-sell them. Am I being too suspicious?
I was looking for a way to put my unused books to good use, but I'm now not sure if shipping them individually all the way across the country, at my own expense no less, is the best way to do this. Not only am I using truck power and people power to send them long distances through the mail system, but I am using paper to wrap them in. (I went through all of my hoarded recycled bubble mailers on the first dozen books.)
It does feel kind of good as I print out each address label and imagine that someone really needs The Second Book of Go or Three Black Skirts right this minute and I am going to help them with that. I'm glad to have more space, and I'm sure I'll find some treasured books on the site to request (already found the weird and wacky The Rose and The Ring). But I think maybe next time I'll save time, money, gas, and help a good cause while I'm at it by taking a box down to the St. Helena Library for their book sale, or taking the good ones to sell at our local used bookstore for credit there.
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