Archive for January, 2008

Fellow Swimmers: Lend me your Reviews

Tuesday, January 29th, 2008

Do you often strain to make your voice heard? Do you have loud opinions wrapped in a meek voice? Well BookSwim has your cure!

As members of BookSwim, you either love, dislike, or disgustingly hate the titles. So we want to give you a chance to publicly praise or vilify the books you’ve read through BookSwim.

We’re looking for a total of 10 very opinionated BookSwimmers to become our resident Book Reviewers. Every review you write will be published in the BookSwim Blog and you will be a featured writer on our site. These are not just your “5-star” short reviews. We’re looking for you to show off your writing talent and tell us how you really felt after reading your BookSwim book.

To apply for one of the 10 slots, all you have to do is write a review on one of the last books you’ve read. Entries must be received no later than Friday February 1st, 2008. The only guidelines are that you need to be bold, opinionated, and at least 4 paragraphs in length. If we like what we see, you’ll become a permanent Book Reviewer for the BookSwim Blog.

To stay as a Book Reviewer, you’ll have to review at least 1 book for every package you receive.

Please send your sample review to us at email address: general [at] bookswim.com. Don’t forget to include your full name and member username (or member ID). And don’t forget the deadline to apply is Feb 1st!

PlanetGreen.com: “Rent Books at BookSwim” by Jasmin Malik Chua

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

January 24, 2008
Read Article at PlanetGreen.com

The simplest way to describe BookSwim? Think of it as Netflix for books. Choose from more than 185,000 hardback and paperback titles, including new releases and bestsellers, and BookSwim will ship them to you. You get to hang on to the books as long as you want, without the fear of incurring any late fees (or the wrath of a surly librarian). When you’re done, pop your finished reads back into the mailbox to get the next titles on your list. Bonus: Shipping is free both ways.

The cost of your membership depends on the number of books you wish to rent at a time. Two books cost $14.99 per month, while three cost $19.99 per month (or $219.99 per year). For $23.99 per month (or $263.99 per year), you get to take out five books at once. BookSwim doesn’t put a cap on the number of shipments you’re allowed each month, so if you’re a speedy reader, this could be worth your while. And, If you fall in love with a particular title that isn’t rare or out-of-print, you’ll get the opportunity to purchase it.

PostSecret Submitter Needs Our Help

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

So, over here at BookSwim, a few of us are serious fans of PostSecret. We do, after all, stock the book.

Well, this week, one PostSecret in particular caught our eye. Someone, somewhere, is spending way too much money on new books and feels guilty about it.

Since this story is so familiar to so many of our subscribers (as it was quite probably your story before finding BookSwim), we’d like to see what we can do about it. Who can help us help this person? If this person is in your life (or a person in your life could just as likely have submitted this PostSecret), pass along BookSwim to them. Let them know that they don’t need to feel guilty any more. BookSwim is here to help!

The NJ Star Ledger: “Read This” by Carrie Stetler

Sunday, January 13th, 2008

Read article at NJ.com
Look at the Original article as a pdf

There’s such a thing as a library, you know.

But libraries charge money for overdue books, unlike BookSwim, the online book rental service that works like Netflix.

You order books online — including, of course, kids’ books — and ship them back whenever you’re done. No late fees.

BookSwim, founded by two Jersey guys from Monroe, has more than 200,000 titles, and you can order unlimited books per month, provided you return your quota before getting the next shipment.

Hopefully, unlike Netflix, which offers no incentive to see a movie within one night, resulting in endless procrastination, BookSwim doesn’t encourage the same inertia. It does, however, help the environment, according to the company. The service “aims to balance out virgin paper used in book-printing production.”

Selfishly, we don’t care so much about that, but we would like to avoid library fines.

A monthly membership to BookSwim ranges from $14.99 for two books to the super-bookworm’s plan of $35.99 for 11 books. You also can pay annually. Join at www.bookswim.com.

– Carrie Stetler