Archive for June, 2008
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
ABERDEEN - Even the intense heat that plagued the East Coast last week couldn’t keep readers from their beloved books.
The extreme heat that caused many schools in the area to close early also prematurely closed the main offices at BookSwim.com, based on Church Street in Aberdeen, after the heat melted a plastic bookshelf at the 5,500- square-foot warehouse.
The bookshelf toppled onto one directly next to it, creating a domino effect, spilling thousands of books onto the warehouse floor.
“No one was injured, but they had to spend most of [Wednesday] and [Thursday] righting the shelves and re-shelving the books,” said Tom Cosentino, who handles public relations for the book rental company. “They were still able to fill orders, though, which is pretty productive.”
BookSwim.com is a book-based version of the popular movie rental company Netflix, Cosentino said.
Read Article at Bayshore Independent
“It is a book rental company. Customers pay a monthly subscription fee and get the books on their wish list shipped out to them,” Cosentino explained. “The customer then returns the books when they are finished and they get their next month’s supply of books.”
According to Cosentino, customers can receive up to 11 books a month.
“It is great for people who don’t have the space for all of their own books, or for people who don’t want to buy all those pricey bestsellers,” Cosentino said. “The company services the whole country.”
Cosentino said that BookSwim.com was founded by two local businessmen and has blossomed so much that a library in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, has started using the site.
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Monday, June 16th, 2008
Boy, do I have great news for you!
The Warehouse:
You may recall our warehouse mishap last week. With additional help from friends, family members and former interns, not only did we get everything cleaned up by Friday, but we even got ALL of last week’s packages checked in and new ones sent out! We would have e-mailed you Friday, but passing out from exhaustion seemed more appealing at that particular moment.
Yes, as we strolled into work this morning, it was business as usual with everything back on track. We were very fortunate that only a few dozen out of the 50,000 toppled books were damaged. We had their funeral over the weekend. BookSwim co-founder, George Burke, gave a beautiful eulogy.
We would like to take a moment to sincerely thank you not just for your patience, but also for your many letters of emotional support and encouragement as we dealt with this worst-case-scenario.
It’s often said that the Chinese word for “crisis” also means “opportunity”, and we have utilized this opportunity to develop more efficient ways for just about every step of fulfillment - from check in, to shelving, to packaging - which means better service for you. We’ve also taken necessary steps to ensure that this never happens again. Yes, BookSwim is actually emerging from all of this as a better service.
The Website:
In other news (as in, things we wanted to let you know last week, but got a little sidetracked), BookSwim.com has some improved features! Most noticeably, you can now log in from the main page. The coolest improvement, however, can be found in the “My Account” section:
In the “Books” column, to your left, you’ll see something new that says, “Return or Keep my Books”. It replaces the erstwhile “Books in Possession” page. There, you can see every title you currently have at home and easily decide whether you’d like to return a book or purchase it at the discounted BookSwim price. It still does pretty much the same thing, but now it’s clearer, easier to use and looks super-snazzy.
“But BookSwim Team, why should I use this feature?” you may be asking. Because knowing which books you’re sending back to us allows us to assemble your next package in advance, getting you the books you want faster!
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Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
Many of you around the country are doing two things right now: Getting ready for Father’s Day this weekend and sweating yourselves silly in the heatwave. Well, here at BookSwim, we’re no different.
There’s good news and bad news (bad news should always come first):
The Bad News:
The heat has raught havoc in our warehouse. Shelves have suffered from triple-digit temperatures causing a fissure in one near the end of our exceptionally long row. Imagine dominoes. Tens of thousands of books are strewn and piled on the floor.
Let’s talk about how this affects you: It may take us up to four days to reassemble our warehouse. Until that time, we will not be able to check in returned packages or send new ones.
We have every employee focused solely on this task, from fulfillment staff, to programmers, all the way up to executives. BookSwim is dedicated to quickly resolving this in such a manner that it never happens again.
The Good News:
We will be up and running, and even caught up, by Father’s Day. As a token of our appreciation for your patience through this - our darkest hour - we would like to extend a special Father’s Day gift to all of you:
From now through June 15th, all giftcards, $30 and up, purchased with the promo code FATHERSDAY1 will be discounted by $5. And if your dad is a really big reader, any giftcard $100 or more is $15 off with that code.
Things you can do with BookSwim in the meantime:
1. Read your books
2. Receive books that have already been sent
3. Send books back (we’ll check them in as soon as we can)
4. Browse books on BookSwim.com
5. Add books to your Pool
6. Love us for the tenacious scamps that we are.
Thank you again, sincerely, for all of your patience,
The BookSwim Team
P.S. We’ll be sure to send out another e-mail letting you know when full operation has been restored.
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Monday, June 9th, 2008
Where Are You Now? – Mary Higgins Clark
What would you do if your brother disappeared 10 years ago and only calls every year on Mother’s Day? Carolyn MacKenzie is tired of living with the constant question of her brother’s disappearance and she’s ready to do something about it.
I’ve never read a MHC book that I didn’t like. I will never forget my first… the hardback version of Remember Me, the summer I was 16 and the binding got wet at the pool and stained my beach towel. Since then I have read everything she has written and continue to look forward to her next novel.
This novel has everything we’ve come to expect from MHC; it has two mysteries and a never ending cast of characters to confuse you. Keeping up with the many characters is one of the major tasks to MHC novel; with whole chapters that can take only one page, jumping from one person’s thoughts to another can get confusing. It defiantly works at keeping you from guessing the outcome. As for the two mysteries, MHC deeps us on our toes, not only do you have to figure out who is behind the crime, but also who will the main female character fall in love with. I think that is how MHC appeals to so many women, I personally don’t want to read a romance novel, but MHC adds one or two pages at the end to get the “happily ever after” fairly tale quality that so many of us are looking for.
All in all an excellent novel by MHC; she has the winning formula: crime thriller with just a little romance. Even though I know what to expect as far as the style, the crimes are always fresh, new and a little twisted. Wonder how long we’ll have to wait for her next thriller?
EW
Add Where Are You Now? to your pool today.
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Monday, June 9th, 2008
Mrs. Whippy by Cecelia Ahern
Emelda is getting divorced and frankly she’s the better for it. However, how long will it take her to realize this and convince her children that she hasn’t done anything wrong and that their father is a big pile of stinking dog poo? She seems to be on a forever downward spiral, with only her ice cream to console her… until she meets Mr. Whippy.
Cecelia Ahern can write; we all know this, her first project, “P.S. I Love You,” was outstanding. I had my doubts at first, thinking she got the book deal at such a young age due to her father’s position, but she continues to prove that she deserves it. She did a wonderful job of creating an interesting, full story in only 75 pages. This book is an excellent quick read, not only because of its length, but because once you start you won’t be able to put it down.
EW
Add Mrs. Whippy to your pool today.
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Monday, June 9th, 2008
Playing for Pizza by John Grisham
American football in Italy… who knew! Just like at the movies, a football story is rarely bad. Combine that with the writing skills of John Grisham and of course you’ll have a hit.
Following his third concussion and another humiliating game ,this time losing the Brown’s chance at the Super Bowl, third string quarterback Rick Dockery has only one job offer… to play for the Parma Panthers. At first Rick thinks Parma is in Texas, but soon learns that to continue to play and get a paycheck, small as it is, he will need to move across the Atlantic. In the end Rick’s move will transform Rick from a boy who plays football to a man who is a professional athlete.
John Grisham found something truly unique in this day and age… a group of men who still play football for the love of the game. True, coaches and two Americans get paid, but most of the team plays because they love it. He took a real thing, football Americana, and wrote truths about the game in Italy and intertwined it with a story of someone becoming a man.
I true John Grisham fashion the book is irresistible, you find yourself thinking of these characters when you are not reading and up set at the end when your short time with them is finished. The story ends and begins on the last page, with many questions unanswered in black and white.
I happened to read this book on my way to Milan and was intrigued. Not only did I want to see Italians play football, but it is free! In America even High School football costs $10 per tickets. I landed on a Sunday morning and had I not succumbed to jet lag (a.k.a. napped), I could have made the Parma Panthers vs. Milan Rhinos game in Parma Sunday afternoon (I’m still kicking myself). As the season is only 8 weeks long, I will have to plan another trip next year to see a game. However, I did make it to Quattro Mori, the restaurant that Rick goes to in Milan before the game with the Rhinos, and had a wonderful Bolognese.
EW
Add Playing for Pizza to your pool today
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Monday, June 9th, 2008
Read the article at NJBiz.com
George Burke, above, and Shamoon Siddiqui recently took first prize for their book-renting company called Bookswim Inc. [Steven J. Dundas]
ABERDEEN — Touting itself as the Netflix of books, a startup company launched by a pair of 26-year-old friends is making its presence felt both locally and nationally.
Bookswim Inc., which rents books through www.BookSwim.com, last week began supplying 10 public libraries in Texas with the reading material for their book clubs. Two weeks ago, the Aberdeen-based company won $20,000 and first place in a business-plan competition run by Rutgers Business School in Newark.
Most of the company’s revenue comes from individual subscribers who are mailed from two to 11 books at a time for monthly fees ranging from $14.99 to $35.99. Like DVD-renter Netflix, BookSwim sends books based on lists that subscribers online. There are no late fees and rented books can be bought at discounted prices. Members may rent an unlimited number of titles per month but receive replacements only after returning books, using pre-paid envelopes.
BookSwim customers “don’t feel [book] ownership is necessary” but still want to read, says co-founder and chief marketing officer George Burke. He and co-founder Shamoon Siddiqui met in 2000 as undergraduates at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. Siddiqui graduated from Rutgers Business School last month with an M.B.A.
“On the whole, readership may be declining but the market of book readers is still huge,” says Burke. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, he says, 12 million people in the U.S. read three or more books per month. “They’re our target market.”
BookSwim had revenue of about $700,000 for the fiscal year that ended May 31, says Burke. The year-old company has 13 employees who operate out of a 5,500-square-foot warehouse. At any moment, two-thirds of the company’s 15,000-book inventory is outside the warehouse, he says.
“They [Burke and Siddiqui] are very tenacious and resilient,” says Fernando Alvarez, an economics and finance professor at Rutgers Business School who runs the annual business plan competition that the partners won this year. BookSwim made the finals in 2007 but was not among the winners. “They’re turning obstacles into opportunities,” Alvarez says of BookSwim’s deals with the Texas libraries, who could be considered rivals.
Burke doesn’t see libraries as direct competitors, however, because they carry few copies of new titles, do not mail books and charge fines for late returns.
Judy Daniluk, technology consultant for the North Texas Regional Library System in Fort Worth, says 10 libraries are each paying BookSwim $1,200 for a year’s worth of book rentals for clubs with up to 20 members that hold monthly meetings.
BookSwim buys its books from sources that include the online Amazon Marketplace and Baker & Taylor Inc., a library supplier. BookSwim titles that go unrequested after borrowers return them are sold to “free up cash to spend on additional inventory,” says Burke.
BookSwim pays an average of $5 in U.S. postal fees for round-trip shipments of two books at a time. The company mails to customers within the U.S. and will send books overseas to military locations. “Shipping will eventually become our biggest cost,” says Burke.
Competitors include Booksonline.com, which runs more than 40 book clubs, including Book-of-the-Month Club and the Science Fiction Book Club, and claims a total of 8.5 million members. BooksFree.com mails rental paperbacks and audio books to subscribers. Burke says this limits its ability to rent new titles, which normally come in hardback.
BookSwim doesn’t rent publications such as textbooks and the “Guinness World Records” that are constantly d, says Burke, because outdated editions would prove too difficult to rent or sell.
He notes that by calling itself the Netfix of books, BookSwim is able to “explain the business model in three words.” And with the word “Netflix” on the BookSwim Web page, “we’ll have a higher probability of turning up in Google search.”
But Peter Pizzi, a partner in the intellectual property group at Connell Foley LLP, a Roseland-based law firm, says that playing on another company’s name and reputation and copying its way of doing business could have legal ramifications. “Netflix could potentially argue that its [name is] a famous mark and this use is diluting its trademark and subject to a trademark dilution claim,” says Pizzi.
On the other hand, he adds, BookSwim could argue that “it was necessary to mention Netflix in order to explain [BookSwim’s] service, that it only makes limited use of the Netflix mark and that there is no indication that Netflix endorses BookSwim.”
Steve Swasey, vice president of corporate communications at Netflix’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, says business-model copycatting and brand-name borrowing is nothing new to his company. “We do have patents on our business process, but we are also aware that other companies use similar functionalities,” says Swasey. “It’s just not something that we’re going to pursue legally. There’s a company that rents purses and calls itself the Netflix of handbags, which is even mentioned in a throwaway line in the new ‘Sex and the City’ movie.
“These things happen,” he adds. “You build a successful business model and people copy it.”
Burke says BookSwim plans to seek up to $500,000 in angel funding in the coming months to hire a seasoned executive. “Shamoon and I realize that the next stage will take experience to push us to our goal of being a $200 million company by 2012,” he says. “And veteran executives don’t come cheap.”
Posted in Press & Media Clippings | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 9th, 2008
Read the full article at NJBiz.com
New Jersey remains a fertile ground for innovation, as this week’s profile of BookSwim, a Netflix-like online book renter, clearly shows. The idea for the company came from two young entrepreneurs who met as students at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Their startup is still in its infancy, but looks to have the prospect of good growth.
That’s true of many small businesses, which continue to generate jobs in New Jersey and across the country even as big companies initiate mass layoffs…….
……..What’s needed is not less state funding for fledgling businesses but more. Trenton should an office of small business and technology development to serve as a one-stop center for financial assistance, and to act as an advocate for startups like BookSwim that have the potential to enrich the New Jersey economy and good jobs.
Read the full article at NJBiz.com
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Friday, June 6th, 2008
Hey Swimmers,
As many of you know from contacting us, our tech department is perpetually toiling on our website to make it even more practical and intuitive for our users. Since the tech guys won’t stop bragging about it, we thought we’d tell you about the latest revision to our website: the new and improved Keep or Return My Books page! Now it’s even easier to purchase books you’d like to keep and let us know which books you’re returning so we can prepare your next shipment.
To check out the shiny new page, click the Return or Keep My Books link (formerly Books in Possession) under your account dashboard. You’ll see all the books currently checked out to you listed in their full glory, with convenient icons for each book that you can click to purchase your book or to mark it as returned. To let us know which books you’re returning, just click the Return Book icon next to each title until you’ve built a complete list of the titles you’re dropping in the mail. Once the list is done, click the “Return These Books Now” button and our team of warehouse ninjas will immediately spring into action, gathering the next books from your rental pool for a speedy shipment.
Speaking of speedy, you may have noticed another recent change in our catalog: The Scarlet Letter is no longer listed in the Gay & Lesbian section! Users like you have attacked the incorrect catalog categorizations quickly and ferociously, helping our catalog become that much easier to navigate. Here are the top five BookSwimmers who have done the most to help us clean up our catalog:
1. Member #18256, Tammy from Oregon: 724 votes
2. Member #12512, Nicole from Arkansas: 633 votes
3. Member #10930, Pamela from Oregon: 590 votes
4. Member #11940, David from North Carolina: 531 votes
5. Member #11389, Stephanie from Ohio: 418 votes
And the best part: none of those votes was wasted, and each one represents another mistake fixed in the catalog. Thanks to all the above, and to everyone else out there voting! Think you can catch up with Tammy and the other top voters? All you have to do is browse through our catalog and click the ‘Wrong Category?’ button when you find a title that doesn’t belong in its category. Remember, if you’re among the top voters, we’ll have a $10 Virtual Gift Card for you as our way of saying “thanks” for helping us improve our title listings. Even if you’ve just heard of this contest, don’t worry– you have the rest of June to catch up with Tammy and the gang.
These are just some of the things we’re doing at BookSwim to make reading with us easy, convenient, and enjoyable. We’re gathering feedback from Swimmers all across the country about the changes you want to see, and the catalog sweeping and new return pledging system will be one of many improvements you’ll see on our website from day to day. Thanks again for choosing to read with BookSwim!
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Monday, June 2nd, 2008
Read full article at NJBiz.com
Siddiqui and Burke took top honors. [Photo by Larry Ford]
A book rental company on the order of Netflix Inc. won first prize last week in a business plan competition held by the Rutgers Business School.
BookSwim Inc., of Aberdeen, took home $20,000 for winning the eighth annual Rutgers Business Plan Competition. Through the company’s Web site, BookSwim.com, subscribers are sent anywhere from two to 11 books at a time by postal mail for monthly fees ranging from $14.99 per month to $35.99 per month. The site was co-founded in 2006 by Shamoon Siddiqui, who last month graduated from Rutgers Business School with an MBA degree and Web designer George Burke…..
……The business plan competition drew 34 entries, with the Sales Executive Foundation of New Jersey providing the cash prizes.
The Judges were John Wilson, president and chief executive officer of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of New Jersey, and Richard Romano, retired corporate vice president of AT&T. Both men are with the Sales Executive Foundation of New Jersey.
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