Review: BookMooch.com Test Lab

Name: BookMooch.com
Price: Free
Rating: Recommend

We've blogged a bit about book sharing here at Re-nest before. But, up until a few months ago, we'd never tried a book sharing service. So, just before the holidays, we joined BookMooch.com. We'd changed jobs and started taking public transportation—so we suddenly needed a constant stream of paperbacks.

Performance:
Signing up for and using BookMooch is simple. Register on the site (for free) and start adding titles of books from your bookshelf that you'd be willing to share.

Once you've uploaded 10 titles to your "inventory" you're eligible to request a book. Every time you send a book out you receive a credit to receive a book. It's painless.

To request a book, you can search through the BookMooch database for titles you're interested in ... or follow their twitter feed and stay up to date on all the books that are being added. If the book you want isn't available, you can add it to a wish list and you'll receive an email as soon as someone adds the book to their inventory.

Suddenly you have a huge world of books to choose from. But don't think you can join and suddenly every book you want to read will arrive like magic in your mailbox. It can be difficult to find specific titles. If you're a big fan of popular fiction (think John Grisham, Stephen King) you'll have endless titles to choose from. If your tastes are a bit more obscure, it might not be so easy.

And then there's the line at the post office. Sometimes sending books to your fellow Moochers can be a pain. But it's worth it. Especially when you receive a book in the mail with a cute handwritten note. Or you find a novel you've been dying to read via the twitter feed.

It's not a perfect service. But it's fun and we've been quite happy with it. If you plow through fiction the way we do, it's a great way to recycle books.

*Our Ratings:
Strong Recommend
Recommend
Weak Recommend
Don't Recommend

Apartment Therapy Media makes every effort to test and review products fairly and transparently. The views expressed in this review are the personal views of the reviewer and this particular product review was not sponsored or paid for in any way by the manufacturer or an agent working on their behalf.

(Image: Flickr member SarahInDisguise licensed for use under Creative Commons)

Comments (9)

I have used this for a while, and got rid of a big stack of books that i didn't want anymore, and got some newer ones that I have been meaning to pick up for a while now. I think it is a great thing!

Love, love, love. I've been using it for a couple of years. Can't recommend it highly enough. It's not *all* mainstream, and you can set up a wish list of the more obscure objects of your desire and get a notification if someone adds a copy. It's brilliant.

I love bookmooch too. My only complaint is that there's no order to wishlist notifications, so frequently when one of my books becomes available it's snapped up by someone else before I can get it. Of course, I've heard complaints about other swapping sites which send out notifications in order of who requested a book first - those systems can get bogged down when the people on the top of the list don't have the credits or change their minds about wanting a book.

I have been a member for about 6 months. I got rid of a ton of books and was able to mooch book I was too embarassed to buy (*Cough* gossip girl *cough*), or didnt want to waste the money on.

I am a big fan of bookmooch. It's been a great way for me to get rid of books I no longer wanted and get other books I had been wanting to read. :)

www.paperbackswap.com has been around awhile and it is the same idea. MrsCatBird, there is an order to paperbackswap's wishlist, and you can put autorequest on to make sure that you get the book you've been waiting for before someone else who just requested it. It's 1 credit for each book you send a 1 credit to get a book, rather than the 2:1 ratio that bookmooch has. They also have audio books, and they have 2 sister sites that allow you to get DVDs and CDs.

I love PaperBackSwap! It's been a great way for me to keep my bookshelves as uncluttered as possible and have a steady stream of new reading material.

The wishlist limit is two hundred items. I maintain a list of one hundred and fifty items, a mix of really popular things, obscure books I've been looking for, classics, and quirky non-fiction. My wishes are regularly granted. Sometimes I have to wait a while, but if it's not something I'm dying to read, it's fine. There is plenty of other reading to keep me occupied. :)

I joined this book club service [bookmooch.com] last week. At the start of new year 2012. I posted a stack of books and managed to give away 3. I requested 2. I spent good money to do this. On the same day I was locked out from my account. I sent tech support emails for help. I received nothing in return. Then 3 days later I found out my profile had been emptied out of inventory and all the book orders I had accepted (and had already mailed out) were cancelled. To this day I still do not understand why this happened. I am very upset and cannot recommend enough to stay away.