Bookmooch: Freedom Rules

So far, the PSS I've used the most actively, after Peerflix , is Bookmooch.com. Have books to get rid of? List them up, maybe someone will mooch them. Want books? Browse what's listed and request whatever you like.

The approach to monetizing the system is unique in my experience; instead of charging a per-book fee or a subscription fee, there are in fact no fees whatsoever to bookmooch members. You incur only the dollar and time cost of mailing out a book to someone who has mooched it, but counter-intuitively, nobody seems to mind incurring this cost up front. It would seem that they should be collecting the price of the "mooch" action from the person requesting the book, but they do not.

The reason is, of course, that over the long term, as long as you mail out approximately as many books as you've mooched, then you have indirectly paid the appropriate price for all the books you've received. The key is the "approximately as many". To keep things fair, bookmooch has a strong reputation system for its users that tracks points and feedback. You accumulate a point for sending a book, and you can then spend that point by requesting a book. Point fractions are additionally given out for good-citizen actions like acknowledging steps in a mooch transaction or leaving feedback for other users.

As of this date, I have packaged and sent 20 books out to 20 different moochers. I have also received 20 different books in the mail. The site says that one has to keep a 5:1 ratio of sent to received, but I don't think that is true anymore.

The real genius of the site is the free-for-all nature of it. Since the site doesn't collect money, the cost to them is hardware, development, and bandwidth -- no e-commerce packages to pay for, no transaction fees, and no guarantees. The group that runs bookmooch seems to truly understand that the bare minimum of a market mechanism is usually enough to create plenty of trading volume, and the reputation/trust system guarantees a certain degree of fairness. Virtually everyone on the site is smart enough to send the books via Media Mail, which is usually about $2 (often less) per book.

Myself, I've forgotten to send out two books... my reputation suffered a little for that, as it should have. Perhaps I can't be entirely trusted. I did accidentally list a few books that later got flooded, and forgot to take them off. Oh well.

I love the books I've gotten for near-free though; I've managed to replace quite a few books that I lost when my basement flooded, as well as get some new books to read on the plane or while on vacation. I used to browse the sci-fi sections of used bookstores like a fiend, but the amazonian convenience of browsing a giant distributed used book shop online often trumps the rarity of good used bookstores in my meatspace location.

The biggest downside of bookmooch so far is the inability to set one's account into "vacation" mode. I got many mooch requests in my email while I was out of the country, but I think it frustrated people that I wasn't going to be able to respond to them quickly or, even if I could get to my email, send the book out quickly. It would be nice if the book inventories could be hidden from searches and browsing while you were on vacation.

Otherwise, great trading service!!