Being a mooch

I wanted to quickly share with everyone a great site I stumbled upon not too long ago. Book Mooch is a great site for sharing books that you have read and wish to pass along and for acquiring books that you would like to read. There are many reasons why you may want to get books via trade; for me, it is because I would rather read a used copy than buy another new one and kill more trees.

To get going on Book Mooch, it's pretty easy.

1. Go to the site and sign up.
2. Add books to your inventory that you wish to give away via the ISBN number.
3. Look up books via Title, Author, or ISBN number to add to your wishlist to read.

That's it really. When you add a book, you are given points toward "mooching" books off of other people. Also, people that want books that you have in your inventory are notified when you add them. If they have enough points, they can mooch it. Most books cost just a point or two. The only cost to you is the money it costs to ship the books to the people that request them. It's the same for everyone else, the owner of the book pays for shipping. When you mooch a book, you pay nothing.

This past weekend, I sent out my first batch of books -- 5 in all, all going to different corners of the US. This weekend, I'll go back, but this time I have two books heading to the EU.

The worker at the Post Office, when I told him about it, thought it was simply amazing that people were doing this. I couldn't agree more. He contacted me later saying that he signed up as soon as he got home.