swaptree

My husband is such a bookworm… he’ll read basically anything. Me? I tend to pick one or two authors and stick with them… I’m always a little hesitant to stray from my tried-and-true favorites. But I suppose there are benefits to living with the book-obsessed, because I was quite pleased when Tim introduced me to swaptree.com.

What is Swaptree? It’s a Web site designed to turn your old, unwanted media into new stuff. Say you have a book you’re no longer into… put it on Swaptree and you can trade with someone else for a book that you are interested in. All you pay is the cost of shipping, which is usually under $3–you can’t even buy a used book for that price these days. You can also trade video games, CDs and DVDs. For people like me, it’s a good way to try out new authors you’re not sure you’ll like at relatively little expense.  And if you decide you don’t like a book or movie you’ve traded for, you can always put it back on Swaptree to trade it for something else.

The cool part is, once you set up your wish list and your for-trade list, the Swaptree system finds potential trades for you automatically; even if you can’t get something you want right away, the system will continue looking for matches as new members join with new items to trade. When an unexpected trade happens, it’s kinda like Christmas. I just recently received a copy of The Little Giant of Aberdeen in the mail after having it on my wish list for months, so that was a pleasant surprise. As a fun Easter egg, Swaptree also tracks the amount of money you’ve saved and how much you’ve reduced your carbon footprint by trading instead of buying outright… to date, I’ve saved $118 and reduced my carbon footprint by 162 pounds.

The only drawback to Swaptree is I don’t have nearly enough time to read all the books I’ve traded for over the last few months. Too many books… it’s not a terrible predicament to be in.  Just ask my husband.