As you can imagine, I have a lot of books. I'm not a collector and rarely read a title twice, so I keep finished ones in a pile and offer them up to whoever happens to visit. The pile has been getting bigger and I thought it might be a good idea to join a book swapping site. After checking a few of them out, though, I changed my mind.
"Eventually we will ask our members to pay annual club dues so that we can operate the club (probably between $10-$20 per member per year). But for now we are waiving the annual club dues so that you can become a member of the club for free!" Yeah, suck me in until I'm committed then make me pay for my membership. They must get their data from Amazon (although I couldn't find any direct links), so there has to be another way for them to make money.
There's a lot of bitching and moaning in their forums about points and product condition and non-receipt and disputes and ratings and and and... It also seems like some members post in the forums just to get people to look at their inventory lists. They practically beg each other to take their unwanted stuff away.
$3.99 per book you receive and they provide mailing labels, including postage, for the books you send. I was almost tempted to try it when I made the mistake of looking at the "Our Favorite Sites" page. BAFAB is the first link on their alphabetical list, an idea I find to be the most stupid book meme ever. First of all, you don't need a made-up week to buy a friend a book. Its creator writes terrible reviews fawning over terrible books. And, it's no coincidence that BAFAB weeks happen to coincide with the start of each Amazon Associates fiscal quarter. I know Bookins has nothing to do with it, but I had to close the window anyway.
You have got to be kidding me. It gets worse. And he plays the lute, too.
