Kristin Scott

Ok, so I plugged it as a cool concept a few months ago, but only just recently tried Bookmooch myself, so want to plug it again. On Thursday, I joined (free), uploaded 26 books into my inventory that I want to give away (easy to do — just put in the ISBN and all the info pops up), and within a few hours, I had 9 mooch requests! So I’ve got to send books out this weekend to some folks in Washington, Oregon, California, Massachusetts, North Carolina (from a small town I used to live in like 30 years ago — had a great email conversation with the man), and London. I chose to say yes to sending internationally — you get more points that way — but we’ll see how it pans out financially.

Anyway, with the points you earn (some by uploading books into your inventory, most by having others mooch your books), I now have collateral with which to mooch off of others. For each book you agree to send out, you get a point (three if international), and with those points, you can equitably mooch books from others. The idea is that the books, themselves, are free, you just pay for shipping, which comes back to you in the form of others shipping books back to you. Very cool idea.

Only problem so far, though I’ve admittedly not spent much time looking for books (I just spent the last full day packing books and am not wanting to add a lot more right now to just move come summer), the few I have searched for are not available, so I have had to put them on my wishlist. Supposedly, when one becomes available, you get an email — then it’s first come/first serve, since lots of other folks are also often wish-listed for the same book. But I’m hopeful — so we’ll see how it goes.