Book Swapping as a Hobby

The book sellers and publishing houses of today are doing a booming business, for those of us that can afford the prices. Most booksellers realize that the books are high priced. Of course it's not their doing. They do try to keep the books moving by having discounts on new books. Then there's the inevitable clearance tables or aisles and the end of the year sale. We bibliophiles swoop down on those offerings like crows in a corn field. The pickings are thin, but most of us know a good deal when we see one.

Then there are those of us book lovers that will haunt every used bookstore, thrift shop and flea markets for books. We don't alway care just what the books are about as along as we get it for cheap or in some cases, free. Free is so much better!

Getting a book for free is a beautiful thing and we bibliophiles are always in search of The Holy Grail of books. We enjoy the love of reading and try to keep the tradition going by passing around our tomes of treasure and for those of us that have found the wonderful world of the internet, we have discovered books for free in swapping sites. There are many out there. All one has to do is Google them.

The way that most of the book swapping sites work is that once you have joined, you see that there are other members there that are offering their books to others who may be in need of a book. As an incentive the book site will give you a number of credits for listing a number of books that you have for trade. You can then make the request of the book, with one of those free credits, that you want and that member will send it off to you.

You get it....yes folks, free! All it cost the member of the book site was the price of postage. You got to use one of those free credits. You return the favor by listing what you have to offer and wait for someone to request a book from you. The beauty of it all is that for every book that you send out you get a credit to order another free book. That wonderful word free. Don't you just love it?

A strong word of advise though. Most book swapping have a "condition of the book" policy. They will ask that the books be in very good to good conditions. No rips or tears, not water damaged, no missing pages, no writing in the books or highlighting of passages. A very good policy in my opinion. No one would want a book that should have been given a decent burial. Namely, the trash can.

Some sites will make allowances. For ex., tears in pages are allowed of up to "1". Books that have writing in or on the book on the front page or back page, due to stamping of a previous book owner or book seller is allowed. Some sites will even go as far as allowing the the requester of books to ask that the books do not come from a smoking or pet environment.

Those policies are acceptable, but it seems as if the concept of free has slipped into the veil of gray. There are some members that feel that they are entitled to a mint condition book included in the swapping sites policy. Now free is free, but if those members that seem to be adding a personal policy to what they want, they are in the wrong place. If they want a brand new book, a bookstore is what they want, not a site that offers second-hand, well used books. For those members, you have to either ignore or in some cases when they request a perfect book as a condition of ordering from you, you just have to decline. It's their loss, not yours.

All in all, the concept of trading a well used book is a very good idea. You can save hundreds of dollars in keeping your personal, home library stocked. So, what if they are slightly torn and tattered. It's what was inside of the book, the story, that shows just how well loved and read that book was.

Learn more about this author, DCMerkle.