"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." (Francis Bacon)
Friday, March 02, 2007
Rent a Book
BookSwim, an online book rental service, is the Netflix of books. Aside from both books and videos being available for free from libraries and that many people do pay for the convenience of home delivery, do people really want to "rent a book"?
I tend to get most of my books free because of the reviews I publish. I only bought about 15 of the 200 books I read last year.
But no I would not rent a book, I do purge and sell some over mine every year. Last summer I sold about 600 books from my library. But I like to own my books, they are like friends.
Well I did try this whole renting books thing once (but from BooksFree.com), simply because the new town I moved to is extremely remote and the library is horribly behind on new titles. There budget from last year still hasn't passed and they haven't had a new book in over 6 months. Interlibrary loan costs 3.00 per book due to the rural location of this library and you can only ILL books from 2005 and before. I couldn't spend all my meager earnings on books, so I tried this rental service. It was a huge mistake. Not only did the books take forever to get here, you had to mail all of your books back together, therefore resulting in waiting another 15 days for 4 more books to arrive. It wasn't worth it in the least!
I wouldn't be interested, especially if there is a fee involved.
If it was a book I really wanted to read that I couldn't find in a book store or in a local library, I'd order it from Amazon. Fortunately, most of the books I really want to own are fairly easy to find.
The idea of paying to rent a book just seems wrong to me. And if their shipping policy is anything like the one Amanda described, then NO WAY!
Libraries used to have rental collections. Some might still. And some people use the fine system as a rental system of sorts, when they bring books back late. ;)
People will pay to rent movies, locally or through Netflix, when they can borrow them from many/most libraries, but they balk at renting books. Interesting.
I tend to get most of my books free because of the reviews I publish. I only bought about 15 of the 200 books I read last year.
ReplyDeleteBut no I would not rent a book, I do purge and sell some over mine every year. Last summer I sold about 600 books from my library. But I like to own my books, they are like friends.
Steven
Book Reviews and More
McEvoy's Musings
Well I did try this whole renting books thing once (but from BooksFree.com), simply because the new town I moved to is extremely remote and the library is horribly behind on new titles. There budget from last year still hasn't passed and they haven't had a new book in over 6 months. Interlibrary loan costs 3.00 per book due to the rural location of this library and you can only ILL books from 2005 and before. I couldn't spend all my meager earnings on books, so I tried this rental service. It was a huge mistake. Not only did the books take forever to get here, you had to mail all of your books back together, therefore resulting in waiting another 15 days for 4 more books to arrive. It wasn't worth it in the least!
ReplyDeleteWow, Amanda, that's a real horror story. How do you find new books now? I can't imagine not having a variety of options.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be interested, especially if there is a fee involved.
ReplyDeleteIf it was a book I really wanted to read that I couldn't find in a book store or in a local library, I'd order it from Amazon. Fortunately, most of the books I really want to own are fairly easy to find.
The idea of paying to rent a book just seems wrong to me. And if their shipping policy is anything like the one Amanda described, then NO WAY!
Libraries used to have rental collections. Some might still. And some people use the fine system as a rental system of sorts, when they bring books back late. ;)
ReplyDeletePeople will pay to rent movies, locally or through Netflix, when they can borrow them from many/most libraries, but they balk at renting books. Interesting.