GET YOUR FREE BOOKS HERE! (bookmooch.com)

Member Name: PRINCESSPUSSYCAT

Product:	bookmooch.com
Date:	10/01/08 (219 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Search a wealth of books from the comfort of your home .

Disadvantages: None really .

<<>> boookmooch.com <<>>


I love to read! Well I expect a lot of us on do on writing sites. We need to write, and to be able to write convincingly, we need to have taken in quite a lot of reading. We are writers, therefore we need, and like to read to expand and fill our minds with all sorts of information. Be it fact, or fiction! The brain is like a sponge and it absorbs information rapidly. Reading is an expensive hobby, and money is not always readily available for purchasing expensive books. Some of us are slow readers, and some are fast. I am a fast reader, and I get through books at a rate of knots. I couldn't possibly buy at new price all the books which I want to read. Books are not cheap these days, so what better way of being able to obtain them, than to exchange them for free, and bookmooch.com is what it's all about. I have been a member of Bookmooch for a while now, and I have found it a friendly, and easy to use site. It is great fun searching out the books that you are after, and arranging for them to be delivered to your door.



<> bookmooch.com <>

Bookmooch greets you with a friendly, colourful and easy to use initial homepage, with the statement "Give books away. Get books you want" It's actually quite a surreal homepage with androgynous creatures with antenna chucking books about, and cuddling others. There are books stacked in piles, and a book running around the page, and I would say in the way that the characters are drawn, it seems to appear like a children's website, on initial viewing. I think the message that bookmooch is trying to put out there, is that this is a fun, and easy to use site. It has the usual 'Home' - 'Browse' - 'About' - 'Join' - 'Log-in' and Search to the top of the page. It is a very basic layout, and user friendly. Membership to join this site is free with a simple sign-up process. Here you have the option to fill a check box to send books Worldwide, or only within the UK. ~



Once joined, the search process is quite simple. You can upload a picture, and write a profile about yourself if you wish. Your personal details are private, until someone has to send you a book. Then of course the system will supply them with your name and address. There is a section where you enter your books you wish to give away. There is another section where you can receive requests from others for the books they want of yours. The next section deals with the mailing of your books, and the receiving of your points. The final section is 'Ask for books'. Which is pretty self explanatory. It is the asking of books from the other members, and using your points to pay for them. It basically works on a friendship, trust and feedback system, and bookmooch.com is the marketplace where you find, and 'mooch' the books you are after! Mooch meaning to: "To get or try to get something free of charge", which just about sums up the site in a nutshell. Bartering is fun, and bookmooch.com is a great site to do it from. ~


When you sign in you are directed to the page: 'Member Home'. From here you can 'Browse' by recommendations, here you can find books you might wish to try. You can search by topic, country, postal code, language of Author, and members that are giving away books. There is a brilliant site-map, and from here you can find everything the site has to offer. There is also a useful 'import' link, where you can send your list of chosen books you want to mooch. There is also a 'moochbar' toolbar icon which takes you directly to Amazon for instant mooching, which I think is a brilliant tool. Amazon has such an amazing wealth of varied books, which extends the range from bookmooch considerably, and allows you to find details such as synopsis, and related information. Of course while you are there you may just wish to purchase something, and for this bookmooch receive a commission. There is also a direct link to the Royal Mail website so you know just how much it will cost you in postage. Second class should suffice, and it is a good idea to have an accurate set of scales at home for this purpose. Books can be costly to send, especially if you choose to post abroad, because now with the new postal system, size, as well as weight comes into consideration, and a large book can be extremely expensive to send.



On your member page you have a 'wishlist' where you can search by Author, ISBN number or book title from Amazon. Or you can search other members wish lists, send email, and add to friends. You also have an inventory which contains the books you own, and the books you want to give away. It's nicely laid out, and easy to access all your information. It really is a very easy site to get around. I should imagine this would be a great place for students to obtain their books, as books needed for courses are very costly indeed. I have sold many reference books on Ebay in the past, and I wish I had kept them for here, It would have been nice to know that they had gone to someone who really needed them, rather than to someone who may possibly make a profit from them, as can be the case on auction sites. ~


What I really like about this site is it's ease of use. A child could navigate it easily. Everything is laid out clearly, and in plain English, without any unnecessary functions. You can add friends, which is a nice way of getting to know other members. Another thing I like about bookmooch are the forums. From here you can discuss and chat with the other members. You can join in a conference, or participate in a current forum. At present there are four forums in progress, I expected a little more to be going on here I must say, and at the moment the main topics up for discussion, were bookmooch in general. But I expect it does vary from time to time. ~



<><> Points for books <><>

- How the points systems works -

There is a section on bookmooch which is headed: 'points explained', and points ratio, and is the very hub of the way this site works. Enter a book you want to give away and you receive 1/10th of a point.- If you respond to a 'mooch request' and send a book, you get 1 point. Or three points if sent outside your own Country. If you request, and then receive a book, you can leave feedback, pretty much like Ebay in this respect, and for this you will earn a further 1/10th of a point. If you receive a book you will use up 1 point, or two if it was sent from outside your Country. It also works on a ratio system, which is 5/1, so basically you have to send out 1 book for every five you receive, which I think is a pretty good deal. You can't go wrong really. If your ratio slips below the accepted, your mooching will be on hold till it's back to the accepted ratio. So it is all very easy to understand, and put into practice.


Feedback and reliability are all important, as bookmooch basically works on trust!, very much like Ebay. Your feedback profile is all a person has to go on. If it's bad, I don't think it would be a good idea to send that person a free book. If the feedback is glowing, you can then have every confidence to part with your book, safe in the knowledge that they in turn, will do their bit! It's a very friendly site on the whole and friendships can also be made. You have an option to email which is very useful for enquiries, and good for keeping in touch with the new friends you have made. The site encourages regular activity and if you go away, you have a function to post a status notice on your personal profile page, to notify the community of planned breaks or absences.



<<>> My opinion <<>>

In the past I would have given my unwanted books to the charity shop, and sold better ones on an online auction site. Now with bookmooch I have the choice of browsing for books I am after, and using my unwanted books as a means to an end. The site works well, and is an amazing online community of people who have one thing in common; Reading, and I think Bookmooch is one of the best Worldwide sites of it's kind. Reading is escapism into a realm of quiet calm, it is relaxing and peaceful. It is also fascinating to read an autobiography delving deep into the make up of the subject. Books based on fact are informative and interesting. Reading nourishes our brains, like food to our body, and bookmooch offers many books over forty different categories. If you can't find what you are looking for, the Amazon link is invaluable, and a very good addition to the site. It is a simple but effective concept, but without the trust of others it wouldn't work.


I find bookmooch very easy to navigate and use, and to date I have had no problems at all. This a wonderful lifeline to someone who is housebound, and loves to read, and in easy reach of a computer. Not only can they find a book, but also they will find a friendly community at their fingertips. I think it's sacrilege when I see a book discarded, or thrown away when so many more people could have had the pleasure of reading it, and bookmooch is a far better alternative to choose. The only thing I miss when using the site is not being able to handle the books before purchasing. Touch is important to me when I am deciding to buy something, and particularly with a book. So there will still be the need in me to browse a real life book store, and to touch, and to smell the leaves of the book. But this site will always be there for me for many a happy days browsing, and purchasing in between. I think the main benefit of bookmooch is the ability to save quite a lot of money. I have now received 7 books which would have cost me, to buy from new, roughly £40.00 in total; Quite a saving! Normally once a book is read, and maybe lent out to someone, what do you do with it then? - If it is not one worthy of placing on the bookshelf, it then becomes an unnecessary item. It seems to me that bookmooch.com is a godsend, and has filled a very necessary, and user friendly niche in the book market.~


http://www.bookmooch.com



Thank you for reading
PRINCESSPUSSYCAT 2008*

Summary: An excellent site for swapping books.