BookMooch discussion

It seems that more people are going over to paperbackswap. I know they have MORE books to choose from and their requirements are stricter,i.e., the books must be pristine, the packaging must be super-duper taped, etc. I tried it a few months back but it's not for me. Plus, I really don't mind if my 'new' book isn't pristine; I just wanna read it.
Plus, if everyone goes over to pbs, where does that leave bookmooch?

Suzanne, I think you've just heard some thing from people who were against PBS for whatever reason. I love PBS. The books don't have to be pristine and the packaging doesn't have to be overdone. It's stricter than BM but IMO that's a great thing. There is hardly any of that stuff that goes on at BM. If someone marks a book sent you can pretty much trust that it's sent. And if you don't get it - they don't get the credit! Unlike BM where they keep their points and get something for doing nothing.
The books have to be in good shape but nowhere near like what most people try to make it out to be like. I post used books all the time and have NEVER had a problem, not even one time. Books with creases and bends and all that. The biggest thing I can think of there is that they don't want books with water damage. And I love that. I don't WANT a book with water damage! lol
The books I get are in such better shape than on BM too. The selection is FAR superior and the people are much mroe trust worthy.
In my honest opinion, BM will be gone soon. The only people that will be there will be the people who abuse the site and those who don't know, like new people and such. So they'll be left abusing each other.
I used to tell people about BM all the time and now the only site I recommend is PBS. I wouldn't dare recommend BM to someone, it would make me look bad once they got on there and started seeing the rampant abuse.
Are you on PBS? I would give it a try and see you know? That way you know and can decide if you like it or not.
Even the most wishlisted books, I don't have to rush to try to refresh my feed all day. I know I'll get it. It might take a little while but I'll get it. And, I'll get it in GPPD shape which is important to me. I don't mind a used book, you know that, but I don't want a book that's disgusting like some I've gotten on BM. I've received books from BM users that weren't fit to enter my house, much less sit with my books. NEVER has that happened on PBS.
A lot of people who love BM say bad things about PBS and start rumors. If you (or anyone else) had any questions about PBS ask me. if I can't answer I'll find it out. But I think you'd love it.

I use both PBS and BM, but I get way more books at PBS. I hardly ever get a wishlist book at BM so I do focus more on PBS. The books do NOT have to be pristine at PBS, but they do have some minimum requirements. They don't allow excessive wear or water damage. I don't think that is unreasonable. You can' enter condition notes at PBS so it makes sense that they have a minimum condition requirement. I have received many a book that was no where near pristine. And no, the packaging does not have to be "super-duper" taped but should be secure (this is no different than BM). I'd rather have a package with more tape than less as I've had some books arrive with ripped sides because of poor packaging and at least one book fell out and was lost.

If PBS is not for you, that's fine. Everyone has their preferences, but I don't think you have to worry about losing people to PBS. There are many people that prefer BM and many more that use both, like me.

Also, BM is an international site and they have a base of international members that cannot use PBS.

Yes, I am on PBS too. I recently got Rainwater by Sandra Brown which is a new book. I was happy about that. Maybe I'll try PBS again.

I think it is worth giving it another try. There are things I like and dislike about both sites, but the bottom line is that I get more books on PBS (I had about 5-8 WL books come up in the past week!). Think of it as a supplement to BM instead of a replacement. :)

I think it is worth giving a try again Suzanne! I know you and I do think you'd like it. I do disagree with Michelle on the point of people leaving BM. I know over a dozen people, just in the past six months, readers of all different genres at that, who have given up on BM and gone to PBS. For different reasons of course but they all fall into the same thing, bad condition of the books, no books on their wishlist, no mooches, abuse by others, etc. I even participated in the research that BM and the college students were doing - John realizes people are leaving. He even had that post awhile back remember that? People are leaving - and there are many. Look at the number of inactive accounts you see when browsing and compare that to a year ago. It's crazy. But Michelle is right about the people out of the U.S. Sadly, they'll be left with the abusers on BM in the end. I doubt BM will last.

I prefer the freedom of BM. I like being able to directly contact the people I am exchanging books with. I also like that I can send and receive books from abroad.
However, I have to agree that PBS seems to have more books.

Bm does have that freedom feel doesn't it? lol I like that too. But you can contact the other person on PBS but there are restrictions. Like we have to wait until after the order has been put in and all that but....
I definitely agree with you there Wendy. i wish PBS would go worldwide!

I also belong to both and enjoy both. Honestly I get and recieve way more books on BM (wishlisted ones as well) I like the fact that I can mark conditions of books that are less than perfect but not ready to be recycled on BM wich you can not do on PBS. I also notice that I get a lot more multiple book requests on BM and try to order in multiples as well on BM. It also appears to me anyways that books move thru the BM system faster than PBS. I tend to use BM for my everyday reading and PBS just for my WL of certain books that I just get in line for to wait. (Ooh I know this came out garbled so I think I'll head back to the coffee pot now)

I used to feel the same way exactly Deidre - everything you said was me exactly. Can I ask how long you've been on BM? I was there, I think, for a little over a year or about a year and a half when I started seeing what I talked about above. I found PBS shortly after starting BM and just started liking PBS better of the two. But BM does have it good points IMO and it has the potential to be the best swapping site ever I think. They just need to step it up a little.

Actually, I have been on PBS for going on 4 years and BM for about 1 1/2 now I think. Both have things I love about them such as on PBS the forums, that the wishlist is in order of request so eventually you will get the book you want and I think it is easier to search for books when you are looking for a specific addition. On the flip side I like BM because you don't have the first in first out rule and you can get wishlist books without having 300 or 400 people in front of you for the same book and an estimated wait of 296 weeks ;o)and I seem to get more orders on BM as well. I guess I love them both for the ways they are different. They both have there ups and downs but between the two they provide just about everything I need. I would not want to be without either one.

I think you're right - they do each have their own great and bad things. And they definitely compliment each other with the different ways of handling the wishlists! I do hope BM gets better about handling the abuse situations. I think the reason I prefer PBS is because they don't tolerate that at all and BM gives people chance after chance and chance. Swapping books is pretty open and shut so there shouldn't be any abuse of others or the system. From my understand they're working on that. I've seen abusers on there that would make people shudder. People who were very open about what they were doing, not trying to hide it in the least. :(
But I definitely agree and BM has the potential to be far better than PBS in that they deal with all countries I think!

You are right there it does need cleaning up and it would be nice if they cleared out the inactive members as well. The only way I see to control that is fo all members to report the abusers and also leave NOT just 0 feedback when there is a problem but -1 negative feedback with comments so that others know that others have not had a good mooching experience with that member. I mean why should we alow a few people to ruin something that we enjoy? You can always add to the feedback later if the problem is taken care of. Anyways there is my 2cents for the morning! Wishing y'all a Beautiful day and lots of WL books!
Ps: Eva, May I ask how to find you on BM? I keep my link to both PBS and BM on my profile page here.

I've been saying that same thing for so long deidre! A lot of people have asked my opinion on certain transactions and when someone says they aren't happy but "feel bad" leaving negative feedback I try to talk them out of feeling bad. They didn't do anything wrong, the other person should feel bad if anyone! And what I always tell them by not being "honest" they're making it worse for others. With the exception of a highly wishlisted book that I have to move fast for, I always, always, always look at feedback. Sometimes I choose not to mooch by the feedback, sometimes I overlook certain things. But if people are leaving positive feedback for bad transactions we have nothing to go on. :(
I'm going to go to your page and if it's not private I'll see them and add you. On here too. :)

I'm probably just repeating what other people have said but I'm going to do it anway.

I do both sites as well and I think they compliment eachother. I like PBS much, much better than BM. The message boards are great and in 2.5yrs of membership there I can't count 1 time only when the site was down. Their power server or whatever had a power outage. BM seems to be down for hours on end on a regular basis. I get a steady stream of WL books from PBS-10-15 a month. In 2+yrs of doing BM I think I've only gotten around 5 WL books. They are always gone when I get the email and come on to claim them. I like that PBS has some rules. you dont' have to wait for 2 or 3 wks for someoen to respond to a request and do the "do I cancel it or wait longer" debate. I can't tell you how many times I've requested books on BM and it's accepted and then it just sits there for a month before being mailed. The message boards are horrible. Most of the time they don't even come up for me. A few times I had questons and my post never showed up. I've made a lot of friends on the PBS boards where I've found out about new to me authors. I play in teh book trading games. It's a lot of fun. I like that they have posting guidelines and I can make a complaing if I get a book that's falling apart and has stains all over it. I find that few people on BM really take the time to fill out the condition notes. And I love, love the TBR Pile, the BIR Pile and the Reminder List. I love that I can look a book up on PBS and it'll tell me that I've marked this a book I've read or acquired already. Half the time when I look a book on BM there's no picture and no info on what the book is about. I would probably make more multiple orders from people if I didn't have to look most of the books I click on up on PBS to see what the book is about. Most of the books I look up on BM aren't available and then I know I will pretty much never get it from BM.

What I like better about BM: I like that you can choose who to request a book from. That if I hit their profile and it says they haven't logged on in more than a month-I can bypass that person as possibly inactive. Or I can check the inventory of the different people with the book and order from someone who has more than one book that I want. I like that I can post that slightly damaged book that has a weak binding or a water stain. I can just put that in the notes to forwarn the other member. This is why I don't mind so much if the book I receive from BM is a little beat up. Because I most likely earned the pt by sending out a beat up book. I've sent out a lot of books on BM that didn't meet PBS guidelines or that had tons of copies already on PBS.

I agree with everything you've said Mary. You actually said some new things and said everything much more clearly than I did I think!
You do know though that you can look through the members inventory when you order a book on PBS right? To see if there are any others you want from the same person.
Can you tell me about the trading games and that stuff that you participate in on PBS. I've been wondering but haven't found any info on them.
But I can't explain enough how very much I agree with you on every single point you brough up.

Good Morning

Or not! I guess I had been lucky till now on BM with very few problems but in the last few days that has changed. I had 5 books that I had ordered from one person saying they misplaced the books even tho I ordered them right after this person posted them. Another order gone wrong 2 books were posted I order then was told that this person did not have the books they had been lent out to a friend and yet another was torn apart by a child. These were all WL books and obviously they must have had the book in hand to post just minutes before the book had disappeared. My only thought, and I very well may be wrong, is that because these are WL books that they were probably posted to another site where they were ordered as well. Again I may be wrong :o( I know a lot of us belong to multiple sites, I do but I always check to see when I post something if it is wl there 1st so that I do not disappoint people by putting them on all sites. What are your thoughts on this? Anyone?

Mt thoughts are that you're started to see the main problems with BM. LOL Sadly. That's just the tip of the iceberg and if it goes for you like it went for me it'll come and go. But it's different there than with PBS. I'll have weeks with little to no WL books at PBS. Of course that's how it goes. But..... at least no one lies to me there like on BM. Like you said, how can they lose something minutes after posting? or the kid ripped it up right then and what? they didn't delete it right away? and how can it happen that many times in such a little amount of time?
My opinion is this and I hate to say it really but I have to be honest. I think that with a few exceptions, the members on BM are a different variety than on PBS. Just more apt to lie and not really care about theur stats and all that. I don't like having rejected or lost books. But some people don't care. And the way BM is set up and the way they handle things LETS people not care if they choose to. PBS doesn't. You'll get booted off. BM lets you stay and abuse the site and it's members for a loooong time.
I don't know - I really hope your experience ends up being different than mine. But I'm still a member on BM for ONE reason and one reason only. because I have a few friends I directly trade with on there. I'll grab a WL book once in awhile and angel for a few friends too once in awhile but that's it. I don't list anything there anymore and I don't participate in anything there anymore. Until they change I know a lot of people who feel the same way.
I told John and everyone else this when they put the post up asking why PBS is growing and why they were losing members but nothing's changed and people are still leaving. Eventually it'll be a site full of liars who abuse each other. :(

Well I have to agree with you. All the orders that went wrong were with members that I had never traded with before. I just noticed that a huge amount of the books that I order and send for that matter are all to and from people I have completed several trades with I have added these people as friends and I check there shelves regularly and trade without any problems. I also have had some good experiences with brand new members who like us are happy to find a place to share there love of books with others. I hate to think that a few (or more than few) crappy members can ruin a good thing for all the rest of us. I am now making it a habit to not only leave feedback but to report any shady behavior I come across. Hopefully it will help to get things cleaned up and I encourage everyone to do the same. I think BM is a site worth trying to keep. We just need to take a stand and get rid of the problem members.

I wanted to give y'all a little bit of info that to me anyways looks encouraging. I just recieved an email from a site adm. that they were looking into problems I had complained about and already those accounts have been closed. It appears that they want the site cleaned up as much as we do.

That is great info Deidre! That's awesome! I've never seen them move that fast! And normally they get back to you and say 'oh, the person didn't know this or is going through that and they said they're sorry and won't do it again.' That gets to happen like 5 or 12 times and them, maybe, they get shut down.
Maybe they are starting to take it more serious! I'm glad you reported them - I do the same thing when I see something although it happens less since I'm hardly ever there anymore. And I started doing the same thing with the feedback. At first I was real nice about it but then I realized that it's "feedback" for a reason! lol and I started being burtally honest when need be.
Well, even though you didn't get the books at least you helped clean up the site!
(Hopefully these people won't just make a dulplicate profile. I've seen about 4 others do that - out in the open - after being shut down. :(

Usually I am a lot nicer about things as well and I put on the kiddy gloves but there is a big difference in being new and making a mistake, which can be left in feedback for others to see that it happened and how it was addressed and someone who knows better or should anyways (this last one has been there for a year) and doesn't care. I am glad to see how quick action was taken these last 2 times. If we want to be able to continue using this site with out being frustrated all the time I think we may all have to start weeding out the shaddy members by ordering and seeing how the transaction goes and reporting it in feedback and if need be as abuse so we can get rid of them. I also know that pbs has a way to tell I think from your IP address if you have had an account there b4 and won't allow you another. If you mess it up it is gone from that house or computer anyways, perhaps this is something John could do on BM as well. I'm sure it is not fool proof but it would help.

I didn't know that about PBS but I have wondered why it doesn't happen on PBS. That's interesting and I think that would help BM. I am very encouraged like you said about them handling your problems like this. Maybe there's hope! And good riddance to all the abusers who will be stuck with no place to abuse!

PBS is really good about booting members off who abuse the system. I don't know what the official criteria is to get someone booted off. They don't just close an account over one complaint. But if they see a pattern of books chronically mailed late/going lost/condition complaints-they'll close the account down. The response deadlines help cut down on the inactive accounts because when the system cancels a transaction for no response it flags the account. There's still inactive accounts out there. But if you just wait out the time PBS sets (5 days to accept a book request, 2 days to accept a WL offer) it'll remove that book from their WL and Bookshelf and get it out of the system.

I still use Bookmooch and don't plan on leaving it. But trade a lot more books on PBS. If BM makes a lot of improvements I would use it more. But for now I am just keeping my trading on BM for slightly damaged books and books that are heavily posted on PBS. If I got more WL books on BM than I would trade more there. But it seems 9 out of 10 books that I look up there aren't available. If I were better about checking my email more often I would get more WL books. With PBS I'm there everyday using the boards. I can set my WL books to autorequest and they just show up like a little surprise gift. If they aren't on auto request it holds the book for 2days for me.

I like the autorequest thing too - i wish they'd email you though because I always keep 200 books wishlisted and the other day three of them came through and I went two days without knowing it so my wishlist was down to 197. Not a big deal by any means but I usually keep it always filled since my to-read list is sooooo loooong. lol Has anyone used this new feature on PBS - buying the books? The market I think it's called? My reminder list there isn't very large there but I'm going to start putting my don't have yet list from here on GR onto the reminder list on PBS so that I can see what's available to buy for cheap. it'll take weeks upon weeks but I have to do it.

I would use PBS more except I had a receiver who never marked the books as received. I had even payed tracking and delivery confirmation but I was the one screwed in the end. Out the books and money and nothing in return. Plus if a book is lost, you are SOL. If they honored things like tracking and receipt as proof of delivery than I would feel much safer in using it. Not saying things should or do happen very often but when money is tight I cannot afford to pay to risk getting nothing back in the end.
Otherwise I love the tighter rules on book conditions, the better variety, search options, etc. And overall the people are better here than sites like Bookmooch. I just wish they was a safety net for both parties the occasional time books are lost or receivers lie. But it does cut out a lot of lying on the senders part.

I started PBS for about 18 mos. - 2 yrs. So far, so good. Haven't been out of pocket - knock on wood. I still use BM. I still have many points on it; it would be in my benefit to still request books on it. The only thing I don't like about PBS is they won't let you list ARC books. I get many of those on LibraryThing. It would be nice to get money from those. So, I post them on BM.

I'm from Norway, so I basically have no other option. So please don't stop using Bookmooch! =P I love the concept of swapping books! I was active on bookmooch about 3 years ago, and then I completely forgot about it. Rediscovered it tonight, and so happy about it! =D

i'm not apart of PBS.

PBS in the last year decide on fees for everyone. It use to be that you could send and receive and as long as you didn't use any of their extra services, delivery conformation, postage, etc... which they tack on fees, then it really only cost the postage. Most of the people mark the book as received because they watch that.

PBS is there to make money, not swap books. I have a lot of books I need to post but I've only posted recently to BM, I'm trying to use up my points at PBS. Unluckily with the way BM works, I have more points than I can use so any books I post, it is not for the points.

BM help me get a bunch of the books I've read, more so than PBS but recently both have less of what I want. Much is due to me already having read the old ones and wanting the new. Still I have hundreds of books I need to give away and I would like to go through BM in boxes to someone that likes PNR/UF/HR. I cannot do that with PBS. I tried the forum, BTW if you aren't a paying member, you cannot use the forums anymore. Swapping for non-member is $0.49. Membership is $12 or $20 depending on number of swaps.

Along with their fees, the monitoring and unfriendly environment PBS has got me to use it... almost not at all anymore. Still I've gotten a lot more in the last 3 years of my wishlisted, that wasn't true before that, BM was the winner, just had to keep an eye on it. After the membership, I get about 1/2 as many WL books. This year has not been good to PBS. I think that also the ebook market is effecting swapping at both sites.

All very true Amyiw. I have started using a site called booksfreeswap.com just to get rid of my books. The requester pays for shipping but it can be dreadfully slow over there. But I feel more like I'm getting books that want to be read into the world than when I do when I just donate them.

Thanks I'll look into it, I'm not in a rush but have a bunch that PNR or UF reader would like.

I hate to revive a really old thread, but I have recently come back to wanting to use bookmooch again. Are you all still active on the site? I had not noticed much of the abuse (saying you will send one and never sending, or awful conditions), and have always appreciated that Book Mooch draws those who not only love to read but love to share books!

Danielle wrote: "I hate to revive a really old thread, but I have recently come back to wanting to use bookmooch again. Are you all still active on the site? I had not noticed much of the abuse (saying you will sen..."

To give more information I started participating in some book clubs again and don't want to have to get every book from the library or buy it either. SO I kind of came back to Bookmooch as a way to unload the book club books I DID have to buy, and to see if I could get any on my upcoming books.

I have still go to local used bookstores and library sales but no longer use the swapping sites like I did. They did this book box swap and I wanted to do that as I have a bunch of boxed books from my move but they are totally random and don't know how to do it. I think that it would probably be good still for some of the older books. I have most of those already though. I didn't renew my membership at PBS but still have a few auto request books in my wishlist if they ever are offered. I go to bookmooch every once in a while to look around. There are some newer members that are active. Unluckily most of the books that come available from my wishlist, I've already read.

I haven't updated in forever. I was very active at one point but found I was sending way more than receiving and ended up with a positive 300+ points. I gave away a lot of points to friends while sending and now have 147 sitting there. I like to get my books to good homes but don't want to send 1 or 2 at a time for 4 or so dollars postage.

I looked at the booksfreeswap as the receiver pays postage. If you pay postage, I'll send books

I still have all my accounts open but I've passed on the last few books that have come available to me. I still have books that I would love to send to a good home but just find myself leaning more towards electronic books lately.

I'm still active on Bookmooch. In the past couple of months, I've probably sent 3 or 4 books, with one more waiting to go out this week, and have received 1. There aren't that many from my wishlist available, but I also have a lot of weird, random books on my wishlist, so I'm not surprised that I don't get a lot of hits on them. Plus, I'm trying REALLY hard to be good and buy/get fewer books, so I tend not to request books that I think I can get from the library.

But yeah, I'm still on Bookmooch, and have been seeing activity from others. I've also never had problems that some others have had, with sketchy transactions or transactions that didn't pan out. I've had 1 or 2 be cancelled on me or lost, and I think I've only had 1 that I sent that the moocher said they didn't receive, so overall, I've always been pretty happy with Bookmooch.