Do you take advantage of getting free books at Paperback Swap? I admit that it took me a long time to be convinced of the merits of using the system. After all, I could get books for less money at a library sale than it costs to mail books out.
But the thing that convinced me is the fact that I can choose specific books to request rather than rely on the hit or miss of what might be available at a used sale. These wanted books would normally cost me either full price because I never came across them used, or half price at a good used bookstore. I’ve gotten two of the Tightwad Gazette books, for example, books I would not have found elsewhere used.
As I mentioned earlier in this series (click here to go to the beginning), the way to get free books is through credits. You can earn a credit every time a book you own is requested and then mailed to another member. The more requests you fulfill, the more books you can order! The secret here, is to find out what books people want, so you won’t waste any money on books that are unpopular, although sometimes the strangest books do eventually get requested.
How can you find out which books are desired? There are at least three couple of ways.
First, you can check the most requested books and the top wish listed books lists. They will tell you what books are being requested over and over again.
Second, you can look up a specific book by title or ISBN number. In one area of the description you will see exactly how many members are wishing for that particular book.
Third, you can take my general guidelines as to which books are usually requested as soon as you post them. They are:
Cookbooks, especially hard cover
Home and gardening books from the last decade
New release books (yes it is possible to find used copies of these for almost nothing)
Craft books and cross stitch books (I always see a ton of craft books and cook books at yard sales!)
Next up, I’ll talk about which books do not do well on Paperback Swap.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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