1. You sign up and list all your old books on the system. They have a nice ISBN-lookup thingy, so this is easy.
2. Once you list your first nine books, you get three credits. You can use these credits to order books from other people.
3. If you order a book, the book's owner gets an email instructing them to mail the book to you.
4. Once you receive the book, you tell paperbackswap.com that you got the book, and they get a credit for it.
5. If someone wants one of your books, paperbackswap will email you. Mail the book to 'em and you get a credit when they get it.
6. Continue forever.
Using this system, I've swapped about fifty books I no longer want for books I want to read. Other than the price of postage for sending books around ($2 to $2.50), it's completely free. They even give you a PDF of the person's address so you can just wrap up your book in the address-paper and save yourself the price of an envelope.
This is an action item because paperbackswap is changing its terms of use this Friday (10/5). The old terms gave you three credits when you posted your first nine books. The new terms give you two credits when you post your first ten books, so if you get signed up before Friday you get a better deal.
This is especially good if you or someone you know has a big shopping bag of old paperbacks. Rather than sell 'em off at a garage sale for a quarter each or donate 'em to a library where they'll sell 'em off for a quarter each, you can swap 'em for something else.
And, of course, if you use me as the referrer, I get a credit.
So if you click the link below, I'll give you a pony.
(disclaimer: not really a pony)
