Back in August, I found about PaperBackSwap from a post on Marauder’s blog. So far, I’ve only managed to send out 17 books, so it’s not done a great deal to help in my efforts to disenclutter, but at the same time, I’ve also received 8 books I’d never read before. So in that regard, it’s at least helping me save a little money as part of my personal economic stimulus plan.
A couple days ago, The Washington Post ran an article about PaperbackSwap. My only fear is that as Spider Robinson pointed out some years ago, being “discovered” is the worst thing that can happen to local bars and restaurants. What I’m hoping though is that more publicity perhaps means more people requesting books and thereby helping with my efforts to disenclutter.
Can I interest you in a book? 🙂
5 thoughts on “Books for Trade”
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Did you know that you can donate your clutter to the Salvation Army Family Store and take a tax deduction for it (make sure they give you a receipt)? The donor is responsible for estimating the value, but I can tell you that the store charges $1.39 for paperbacks and $2.57 for hard cover. They also sell CDs for $2.57, VHS for $2.57, and DVDs for $4.97. In fact, you can donate almost any clutter you have, including clothes, furniture, housewares, luggage, etc. You can either drop it off at the Gaithersburg location, or call to have a truck pick it up. [This message not paid for by the Salvation Army :)]
Oh I know all about the Salvation Army (well, not their prices for books and such), I’ve taken plenty of stuff there too. (They wouldn’t take the typewriter though, that eventually went via Freecycle.)
To get the truck you have to give them something like eight pieces of furniture or twelve bags of clothes. I have no idea what the equivalent number of DVDs or VHS tapes would be.
I’m using a few different methods for disencluttering. The upside of PaperBackSwap is that I get back something of approximately equal value. Books that don’t get swapped might end up being donated though….
I gotcher copy of “Draco’s Tavern” and “Fleet of Worlds” recently, and have finished the former in record time.
I think I prefer this to much of Niven’s Known Space works, actually. For all the fantastical elements of the setting, his characters remain very human, and the Earth he describes is very accessible. In terms of human story, this is probably some of the best sci-fi I’ve read from him in ages, what with terror attacks on the bar, alien reprisals that shock to the core, and so on.
Haven’t touched FoW yet, though I’m sure I will someday.
I’ve thought about doing this, but first how much on average do you pay to mail your books? How do you wrap your books (do you use some sort of packaging)?
Books under 7 ounces are cheaper to mail first class, that works out to about $1.76. (This covers most mass-media paperbacks.) Larger books are (I think) $2.23 for the first pound.
The cool thing is that anything under 13 ounces, you can mail from your own mailbox instead of standing in line at the post office.