MONROE, NJ – BookSwim.com, the first and only online hardcover and paperback book rental service, is announcing the release of a 2-at-a-Time Plan with unlimited rentals at $9.99 for the first month if they subscribe with promo code 2planfor999. Thereafter the membership fee is $14.99 monthly.

“The idea is to let some of our more casual readers discover what it truly means to ‘read more, pay less’. Saving Swimmers money through book rental has been our end goal,” says chief marketing officer George Burke. “Our previous starter plan, 3-at-a-Time for $19.99, gave less avid readers the impression of more books than needed in a month. They wanted to see fewer books for less money and we’re happy to accommodate those who don’t have much time to devote to reading, but still want to save on all the latest and rarest book titles, shipped to their door.”

As with every book rental plan, there’s no late fees so readers can keep our books as long as they wish. Postage is completely free, both ways. And with unlimited book rentals per month, faster readers are rewarded with more books. If the user enjoys a book, as with every plan, he or she can elect to purchase it at a deep discount.

Burke continues to explain the absence of a 1-book rental plan. “Shipping two or even three books in a package can cost the same as one book, so why give members only one book when we can give them three in a package for the same price?”

The average New York Times Bestseller title carries a list price of about $22. For $7 less, the new 2-at-a-Time plan lends members potentially 4 to 6 bestsellers, new releases, classics, or children’s books each month.

ABOUT BOOKSWIM CORPORATION
BookSwim (http://www.bookswim.com), established June 2006, is the first full-service membership-based online paperback and hardcover book rental library club allowing subscribers to rent books shipped directly to their door with no late fees and free shipping. The company is based in Monroe Township, NJ but offers book rental service nationwide ranging from hardcover new release novels to classics, nonfiction bestsellers to children’s books. Book club subscription plans range from under $15 to $36 per month and allow up to 11 books borrowed out at a time and returned in a pre-paid bag, but members are given the option to buy.

We are 95% complete with the development of the new website. This is not just a new coat of paint, folks. We’ve torn down the entire old house and built a palace in its place. We’ve got a few captured screen shots to show you what you’re going to see.

The main goal of this project was to streamline our core functionality of getting many people lots of books in as little time as possible. We wanted to keep this as barebones of a change as possible so that the upgrade is somewhat seemless and you won’t have a big re-learning curve.

What will you be seeing as improvements?

* For one, the search is a gajillion times better because it learns as it’s being used. You will now be able to find what you want. Plus a [very] Advanced Search page
* Your prayers are answered with lightning quick page loads. No more inefficient code crashing the server upon a hint of PR news.
* You’ll also see a Recommended Books section that shows you on a book page what other related books you might like based on reader preferences.
* Gift Memberships. Now you can give the gift of free reading to someone you feel deserves it.
* Better queue rearrangement. We have a nifty cool “drag ‘n drop” feature to let you toss any book in any slot. Also for bigger queues and re-numbering system.
* Our operations efficiency will have increased by 3X so no more running around like a headless chicken in the warehouse finding a book! (But that’s something a little less transparent to you.)

Let’s have a look at these screen shots already!!

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SCREEN 3

Here is a testimonial from the blog ThoughtClusters.com – you can find this at http://www.thoughtclusters.com/2007/09/bookswim-book-lending-service.html.
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Bookswim, the new book lending service I signed up for, seems to be working very nicely. I received 3 books last week. They would have cost me around $50 at the very minimum. I finished and returned two of them. Now two more are on the way. At $20 per month, the cost savings is really good. And the shipping is free.

I also found the customer service very responsive. They replied back to all my emails and also pointed out an useful book request service. If you don’t find a book in their inventory, you can submit a list of books that you want them to purchase. I submitted a big list of books and they added almost all of them, except a few pricey ones.

There were only 2 problems I faced. One was the slow performance in the initial days as many people hit the site because of the publicity. This situation has become better. The other problem which still exists is the search, which returns many unrelated results without proper ordering. Fortunately, the search allows ISBN searches, so it is only a minor hassle.

I definitely recommend signing up for this service if you like reading books (fiction or non-fiction, but especially the latter). And here is a list of some lists of books that other people recommend:

1. Personal MBA: http://personalmba.com/recommended-business-books/
2. Coding Horror: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000020.html
3. Joel on Software: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navLinks/fog0000000262.html
4. Steve McConnell: http://www.stevemcconnell.com/rl-cc.htm
5. Gray’s Matter: http://graysmatter.codivation.com/HowIAmBecomingABetterDeveloperPart1OfInfinity.aspx

Also check your local library for some of these books, especially the business management ones. And that costs no money.