If you like to read then you probably have some books lying around that you do not know what to do with. Wouldn't it be nice if you could trade them for some other books that you want? That is exactly what you can do with PaperBackSwap.com and it is a free service.

I have been using PaperBackSwap.com (PBS) since April and I have received 20 books. There are over 1,500,000 books available at PBS with over 325,000 unique book titles. So how does it work and is it really free?

PaperBackSwap is easy to use. After you create an account, you post the books that you want to swap. They can be hardback books as well as paperback books (audio books are fine too). You get a credit for each book of yours that someone else on PBS requests and receives. You do not get credit until the requester confirms that he/she has received the book. You then can use your credits to request books that you want. You get three free credits for the first nine books that you post.

Books can be posted by manually entering ISBN book numbers or by uploading a file of ISBNs. When someone requests a book of yours, you print out an address label, wrap the book and take the book to the post office. PBS has instructions and tips for packing books. You have to pay for shipping. Books are sent using the US Post Office's Media Mail rate, most books cost less than $3.00 to mail this way. There are no fees to PBS, so in that sense it is free. You just pay for shipping books, when you receive books you pay nothing.

The PBS graphical interface is intuitive and easy to use. You can find books by searching for titles, authors or ISBNs. You can also browse for books by subject. Books of all types and subjest matter are listed. If a book that you want is not available then you can add it to your Wish List and you will be notified by email when it becomes available. You then have two days to request the book before it is offered to someone else. If a book that you are interested in is available but you are not sure that you want it right away then you can add it to your Reminder List. Unavailable books can also be added to the Reminder List. The Wish List has a limit of 200 books.

So all this sounds great but how does PBS pay the bills and maybe make a little money for their effort? If there is an available book that you want but you do not have any credits then you can buy credits. They cost $3.45 for each book with a minimum purchase of 3 credits. There is also the option to buy the book new from Amazon for which I am sure PBS gets something in return. If you do not want to wait for your books to be received to get credit for them then PBS has a Quick Credit option. With Quick Credit you pay 45 cents per shipping label to PBS and then the mailing label that you print will have a Delivery Confirmation (DC) bar code on it. This code is scanned at the post office when you mail the book and PBS then gives you the credit, you do not have to wait for the book to be delivered. Note that you still have to pay for the postage at the post office, only the DC is pre-paid.

Give PaperBackSwap.com a try if you like to read. It is a well thought out system that keeps both sides well informed throughout transactions.

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If you found this article useful and are going to register an account at PaperBackSwap.com then please consider me as your referrer. My PBS Nickname is mydree and my email address is mydree(at)yahoo(dot)com . When you post nine books then I will get a PBS credit. What's in it for you? I promise to check out your books and just maybe I will request one of them. I can't promise that I will want one of your books, but I am interested in a variety of subjects.

You can check out my PaperBackSwap profile right here: http://mydree.paperbackswap.com .

At PBS: How to Swap Your Books .