Paper Back Swap is a book exchange website, so it won’t necessarily help you get rid of all your books, but it can help you save some money on books, and you could always contribute “sales” to the site, and then “cash out” by getting books in the future.
I’m just starting my journey on this site, and will share the results on this page, in the future.
Fees
PBS has a few fees. 49 cents per swap, if you don’t have some free swap credits, which you get when you mail out books. 50 cents to load up money. Variable amounts for printable postage. If you use Media Mail, purchased on another site, you don’t need to worry about the fees so much.
If you don’t use another postage service, the 50 cents to load up money on PBS is well worth it, because printing Media Mail postage is a hassle.
March 30, 2021
I signed up and listed ten books. Of the ten, three were on other users’ “wanted” lists. If these users decide to get credit to purchase the books, then, I’ll need to spend around $2.68 to mail out each book.
In return, I’ll get three credits to request three books.
Someone requested a book, making 4 total possible “gifts”, and I couldn’t find it!
How did I list a book I didn’t have? I keep a spreadsheet of my inventory, and copied the title from that. Unfortunately, I think the book was in storage, so I need to double check before responding that I can send it out.
For the future, I’ll only list books I have in my possession, so I can respond more quickly to requests.
March 31, 2021
I got my first two orders. The user interface to print postage is totally 2005, and is kind of ugly, but absolutely functional, and I love it!
The website has a feature to print a mailing wrapper for the book. This will save you a lot of money, because mailers cost 25 cents each in bulk, and up to a dollar individually.
If you purchase postage from the site, it’s printed on the wrapper.
In addition to a wrapper, you can print in “mailing label” format similar to what you find on Ebay. This is a label you cut out and tape onto a mailer.
If you do lots of online shopping and shipping, you probably have supplies and used mailers, and can skip printing the PBS wrapper, and just print the shipping label.
So far, 20% of the inventory is gone, with two more possible giveaways.
