Lightening the Library

In order to trim down my book collection and make it a little more potentially mobile, I’ve just signed up with a site called paperbackswap.com.

The site is free (for now, at least). You list the books you have to give away, and mail them (at your own cost) when someone requests a book. For every book you send, you get a credit to receive another book in return. When you sign up, you receive three credits as a welcome gift, so you’re already ahead.

I’ve tried listing books with Amazon’s used book system. I had only one taker—someone in Kentucky needed a book on sushi, if you can believe it. The postage cost as much as the book sold for. In fact, I didn’t have any bubble mailers (I now hoard them) so I had to pay for the packaging AND postage and came out .60 behind after I got my credit from Amazon. There are just so many volume used booksellers out there selling the same books for a buck.

Here are some other book-buying and selling resources:
Swaps:
paperbackswap.com
bookmooch.com
frugalreader.com

Cheap Paperbacks:
thriftbooks.com
rereadables.com

Update: I posted 49 books this morning, and as of 12:30, I've already received over a dozen requests for books! So now I'm going to send these books to other people, collect the credits, and see if I can spend my credits on books I've always wanted to collect or own. Maybe I'll just look for very, very small books that don't weigh very much...