Craig Rettig.com

Are you also an avid reader? Lately, I’ve been picking up good number of books using PaperBackSwap. PaperBackSwap is a free online book exchange service. Essentially, for every book you send to someone, you get a book in return. If you send your books out via Media Mail or Parcel Post, this usually comes out between $2–3. If you’re particularly clever, you can get hardcovers as your trade, making it one of the best bargains on books out there.

The Basic PaperBackSwap Flow:

1. Visit PaperBackSwap and fill in the registration form.
2. List ten books on there that you’re willing to part with.
3. You get two free “credits” for listing ten books. Just pick ten books you didn’t like or aren’t likely to read ever again.
4. You then use one credit to request a book listed on the site, and it gets sent to you by mail for free. When you receive it, you mark it “Received” in PaperBackSwap, and the sender gets a credit.
5. If someone requests one of the books you listed, you ship it out to the requestor’s address. When they mark the book “Received”, you get an a credit.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 indefinitely.

PaperBackSwap offers print-on-demand postage service, which I find preferable to doing manually. There are a few advantages to this:

• The postage and delivery confirmation charges are slightly cheaper than they are from the Post Office.
• When you choose this option, credits are instantly applied to your account, and you don’t have to worry about the receiver forgetting to mark your book “Received”.
• Both you and the reciever have access to the delivery confirmation tracking numbers, so you can be sure the book arrived or where it is currently.
• If the book is under eight ounces, you can drop the book in a mailbox instead of making a special trip to the Post Office.

After nine months, I’ve had a flawless experience with PaperBackSwap and recommend it highly, which is why I included it in my FreeBooks software.