I heart Swaptree book swap

-By Lisa

Here at STSL, we love books.

We read four at a time.

We pile them in teetering towers on our coffee tables.

We leave our grandmother wandering around the airport for 45 minutes while we are in a corner by baggage claim, too engrossed in Cry the Beloved Country to notice that her flight had arrived.

O.K., Katherine had nothing to do with that last one. That was all me. Still sorry about that, Gramma.

Point being: We really love books.

As much as I would like to squirrel away every book I lay eyes on, it’s time I acknowledge that there are some books I own that I am not going to read again. Books such as Marley and Me, which was perfectly charming until about page 249 at which point it was violently chucked back on the shelf, never to be opened again.

Enter Swaptree, a book swapping website. It’s fantastic; it eases the pain of getting rid of an old friend, by delivering to my mailbox a shiny new (rather, a used and occasionally highlighted) companion who I have been dying to meet.

Here’s how it works:

I sign up for free and register the books (or movies/music/games) I own and want to swap and rate their condition. When I enter the ISBN or UPC code, I see a list of the books I can receive for that trade. It is reminiscent of being 8 years old at Chuck E. Cheese with my hard won skee-ball tickets in my hand, realizing joyfully that I can trade them for anything on the third shelf.

I register for the books I would like to receive.

Swaptree matches everyone up and e-mails to tell me where to mail my book and which one of my “wants” I can receive. Sometimes the swap you are invited to is a “3-way” which makes me giggle every single time.

I pay for the postage by credit card and print out the handy-dandy label from their website and pop the book in an envelope and in my mailbox for my mail carrier. It’s easy, it’s USPS trackable and I have always paid less than $3 to mail a book. I have the option of not using their label and going to the post office... but that's just not gonna happen.

I receive the new-to-me book in the mail.

So for less than $3,

 

1. I get rid of a book I was not going to read
2. I get a book I am excited about
3. I keep both books in enthusiastic hands and out of landfills

Win
Win
Win

For more from Lisa, check out www.justherejustnow.com