BookMooch: Exchange your books with others

BookMooch is a community for exchanging old books.

BookMooch allows you to give away books you no longer need in exchange for books you really want.

1. Give and receive: Every time you give someone a book, you get one point and can get any book you want from other people on BookMooch. Once you've read a book, you can keep it forever or give it back to BookMooch for someone else as you please.

2. Free: There is no cost to join or use this site: your only cost is to mail your books to others.

3. Points for entering books: You get one-tenth of a point for every book you enter in our system, and one point for every book you give away. In order to continue receiving books, you need to give away at least one book for every two books you receive.

4. Help Charities: You can also donate your points to charities we partner with, such as children's hospitals (so sick kids can get a free book delivered to their beds), library funds, literacy in Africa, or to thank us for running this site.

5. Global Reach: You can request books in other languages ​​from other countries. When you send a book abroad, you get 3 points to help compensate you for the higher postage costs of getting the book. John Buckman, the head of BookMooch, who has lived in California, England, France, and Germany, was frustrated by the large number of books that were only printed in one country and not available in other countries (e.g., many books were published in the UK but never in the US).

6. Wishlist: You can keep a "Book Wishlist" that will automatically be delivered to you when you have points and/or books become available in our catalog.

7. Feedback Score: Every time you receive a book, you can leave feedback for the sender, just like eBay. If you keep your feedback score up, people are most likely to help you when you ask for books.

8. How We Pay the Bills: We utilize Amazon's database of books, and if you click on an Amazon link from our site, we will receive a commission from Amazon if you purchase that book, rather than getting it for free from BookMooch.

9. Why "Mooch"? : dictionary.co.uk defines "mooch" as: "to get something without paying for it, or to borrow something without intending to return it," as in "You are old enough to get a job and stop begging from your family." Therefore, the term fits this project: BookMooch is a way to return books without paying for them and without intending to return them. This is the American definition of "mooch," and one of two definitions in the UK. The other British definition is "to walk or move slowly, without much purpose," as in "Stop wandering around the room and do something useful!" This isn't a completely appropriate definition for this site, but it's fun, so we'll just go with it.

10. Why Create This? : If you're passionate about books, you know how emotionally difficult it is to throw away a book, even if you'll never read it again. You want to find a good home for your books, for them to find someone who will appreciate them. Also, you may be interested in trying a lot of books and keeping the ones that are great. It's a great crime for a book to disappear, go out of print, and nobody reads it. BookMooch keeps books in circulation and finds new readers for them. If you're not interested in free books, you can donate to charity, which is the points you earn by giving away books.

11. Who are we? BookMooch was conceived, designed, written, and managed by John Bachman (pictured above). John also runs the online record label Magnatune. The graphic identity of the site was created by Claudy Niesen and the illustrations were created by Andrice Arp.