This Friday Favorite is a little bittersweet. I have been on Goodreads since July of this year (I know, late to the game) but didn’t stumble across the Bookswap they host until a few short weeks ago. And I was hooked. It’s an awesome setup. You list books you own that, for whatever reason, you are willing to swap and never see again. Someone else browses the listings on the site, finds a book you own, decides it must be theirs, and requests it. You confirm that you do, indeed, still have the book and are still willing to part with it. They pay for shipping, you print the generated shipping label, and drop the book in the mail. Voila! And vice versa. You find a book you want that someone else has listed, you request it, pay for shipping, and then await the new-to-you book with glee. I’ll admit, I love getting packages in the mail, even if it is something I paid for myself and isn’t a surprise at all. And I love books, so getting a ‘new’ book for just the price of shipping (usually $3-4) is pretty spectacular. I went on something of a bookswapping binge.
So you can imagine my disappointment when I found out this week that Goodreads is discontinuing the Bookswap feature as of October 31. 🙁 The language they used in the announcement was pretty vague, but I think what it boils down to is that they weren’t generating as much profit from the feature as they would’ve liked, despite padding the shipping prices just a tad. And despite its generally diverse listings, it wasn’t as popular/well-known enough even among the Goodreads crowd as it should’ve been; Goodreads really dropped the ball on making users aware of the feature in the first place. Whatever the true reasons, as of the end of this month Goodreads Bookswap will be no more.
So of course I’m using the swap like CRAZY now, soaking up the books-for-only-shipping deals as long as I can. I will use it up until the very last minute. Then, sadly, I will have to find a new (low cost) place to feed my book addiction. In that vein, I’m taking suggestions for other good bookswap sites out there. Know/have experience with any?
