Tag Archives: paperbackswap

Build on Good Habits!

28 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in Books, Changes & Progress, Health

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  • The problem:  None really.  Yay me!
  • The resolution:  Schedule that 5K and join that reading challenge.
  • The long term solution:  Healthy and brilliant, of course.
  • Before:  Wobbled through my first 5K in December and read 75 books in 2011.
  • Step by step:
  1. Identified 2 local 5Ks in April.  Will register for one of them in February based on my schedule.
  2. Laid out a training plan for a 5K and one for a 10K.  If all goes well, 10K in the fall.
  3. Decided on 80 books for 2012 on Goodreads (just waiting for the 2012 Challenge to start so I can sign up).  My end of the year total for 2011 was 90, goal was 75, so that seemed like a reasonable increase.
  4. Pulled out all the books that are in my TBR pile and are wishlisted on PaperbackSwap and put them in the bedroom bookcase – that way I should get to ship them out as soon as I finish reading them.  Double duty on minimizing/decluttering!
  5. Got a library card (you’d think I would have done this already, but back when I traveled it just wasn’t practical to take loaned books with me).
  6. Set up a route in RunKeeper to the post office (to mail off those books) and to the library.

To E-Book or Not to E-Book?

14 Saturday May 2011

Posted by in Books, Cosmic Questions, Geeky, Paperless

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One of those interesting paperless questions that tends to torture me.  Do I read e-books?  Yes, I have the Kindle app as well as other assorted e-book readers on both my iPad and my Windows 7 phone and I’ve read books, technical documents and short stories on them.  Obviously, this is the truly paperless solution and more than likely the one we will all be using exclusively in the future.  With more and more authors choosing to e-publish only, schools incorporating more digital texts, libraries providing e-book downloads and readers getting cheaper and cheaper, it’s pretty much a done deal.

It’s going to be a sad day for me.  I love to hold a book.  Books never have low batteries or glare issues.  You can tell from my much older articles I think PaperBackSwap is one of the best sites around and I’m still a religious user.  That said, it’s a lot heavier to carry a selection of books than an eReader and you don’t have to worry about the bookmark falling out.  I love being able to switch from device to device and synch up to my last stopping point.  Electronic publishing has made short stories and novellas more accessible as individual products.  It’s certainly easier for new authors to publish electronically and for established authors to promote shorter works.

In truth, I’m just looking for the perfect tablet to add to my paperless arsenal.  While I doubt I’ll be jumping to new release books anytime soon, you never can tell – I would dearly love to see a format for eBooks similar to the all-you-can-eat Zune Pass model for music.   That, my friends, would probably be the start of a serious reduction in physical books around our place.

Book Reading Challenge (Q2) – 5/7

21 Monday Mar 2011

Posted by in Books

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From the Goodreads Urban Fantasy Group (April 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011):

(Definition of Urban Fantasy for this challenge: books with a vampire, werewolf, witch, or fae character or set in a UF world with some other mythical character or skill set)

* 1 Urban Fantasy Title – Unfallen Dead, Mark Del Franco †††
* 1 Urban Fantasy Title featuring a male lead character – Unquiet Dreams, Mark Del Franco ††
* 1 Other Fantasy OR Paranormal Romance Title (not strictly UF) – Witchling, Yasmine Galenorn †
* 1 Other book by an author you’ve never read before (expanding your horizons!) – any genre – (Blood and Iron, Elizabeth Bear)

ANY GENRE:
* Optional Add’l Book – Young Adult
* Optional Add’l Book – Anthology – Inked, Karen Chance, Marjorie Liu, Yasmine Galenorn, Eileen Wilks †††
* Optional Add’l Book – Cover Hunt: Book with the color yellow on the cover – Eleven on Top, Janet Evanovich ††

The Year of Living Frugally – PaperBackSwap

26 Thursday Feb 2009

Posted by in Books, Cheapskate

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I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I can remember.  I’ve read between 50-100 books a year since college – my only New Year’s Resolution is to read a book a week and I have never failed.  At $7.99/book, that’s an expensive habit – more than $400 per year, not including time and gas and such driving to bookstores (though I love bookstores).  Yikes!  And used book stores have virtually disappeared.  Yes, the library is free and obviously the cheapest option, but I’m one of those folks that reads “spur of the moment”, drags books around everywhere and goes on genre binges.  Several years ago, however, I joined paperbackswap.com and cut my annual reading costs in half (remember, this is about cutting costs, not necessarily using the dead cheapest option – yet).
 
Basically, it works like this – you sign up and post any books that you don’t plan to read again (you are going to be sending them to other people in exchange for having people send books to you).  The books go in a queue (meaning if you posted the 10th copy of “The Possum’s Guide to Crossing the Road” you are number 10 in line) and as folks want your book, you move up in the queue – a FIFO system (First In, First Out).  When your book reaches the top, you mail it to the requestor and you get a “credit”.  You can then use your credit to order a book you want from another member.  If that’s not good enough, you get bonus credits after a you ship a few books out and for referring friends.  What you get is a clean, readable copy of a book you want, delivered to your house by the USPS.  The shipping cost for a paperback is around $2.50 per book or you can simply buy credits from paperbackswap itself or from other members.
 
Annual savings (not including gas and time) – $270 per year.  Check it out at www.paperbackswap.com – and consider using me as a referral (cosmichomicide) if you like what you see. 🙂
 
January Savings Total – $270/year
Cumulative Savings Total – $270/year
Remaing Savings Towards Goal – $5730