Books are an expensive commodity these days, we all know that and if like myself, you are a bit of a collector, then your
well stacked book shelves probably constitute and lifelong investment of many thousands of pounds. Even if you do manage to find a cheaper source for good conditioned second hand
titles, the seller to compensate for the apparent bargain generally hikes up the postage and packaging costs. One of the other factors to collecting books I find, is that although I have a reasonable library of my pet subject, history, I have a whole cupboard full of novels and the like that are never going to be read again. A more philanthropic person would give them to the charity shops and the like and in the past I have done just that, but I have recently discovered a way of making those books work for you, and it’s a website called “Readitswapit.” http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/TheLibrary.aspx
The premise is very simple. The site is basically a database of books that people are wishing to be rid of and they do this by exchanging them for other titles on the site that are being made available. Joining is free and quick, basically a simple form of your personnel
details and your up and running. Your next step is to load up a few books that you wish to swap. Again this is easy as they are linked to the ISBN database. This means that most modern books, except book club and foreign titles can be listed by entering the ISBN number and the site fills in the specifics, similar to the system used by Amazon for selling second hand titles. If the ISBN is not valid, there is not a real problem as it just means that you will have to fill the book details manually and again that is a fairly swift process.
Once you have loaded up a few titles you are ready to go. If someone e-mails you to say that they want one of your titles then you look into their list to see if there is anything that you wish to pick from their list. If there is a deal is made and all you have to do is post your book to the address given and they do the same. There is however no obligation to pick a title if there is nothing you like, a deal only goes ahead if you both have something that the other wants. The more books that you list the more offers you are likely to get and you can begin to swap all those old titles for ones that you do want.
There are thousands of books on the system and even in the more specialist sections there is a good selection to be had. Obviously the site depends on the honesty of the users, its very much “my word is my bond” so to speak, but it’s a great idea and I just wish I knew about this site years ago.