It’s finally done and complete. BookSwim’s THE GIFT OF READING App lets you send free $10 gift cards to 20 of your favorite reading buddies on Facebook.
First, become a BookSwim Fan Page by clicking the button below:
THE GIFT OF READING is our first app! Give it a try here:
WHAT THE HECK DO I GET?
Hopefully I can help spur your imagination with some gift ideas. Anyone close to me can tell you that I put more thought into gift giving (especially delivery of the gift itself) than most people. In the past, I’ve written computer games, folded oragami until my fingers bled, built practice swords, hunted e-bay for antiques to be restored, and even more crazy ideas. I rarely overspend and try to keep my buying short, so if you’re crafty then you can take advantage of these ideas, otherwise you’re going to fork over some major dough.
1) The Book Purse (Pictured Above). Rebound Designs has them for sale for $125. While that price-tag is reasonable, I wanted to customize the book, so my only option was to build it myself. All materials (including the super glue, fabric, hot-glue, handles, clasps, book, etc) were $45. My final product took 3 hours to make and isn’t as nice as Rebound Design, but it is completely personalized.
2) The Origami Heart Story – This takes time and a bit of creativity, but the total cost of this project can be as cheap as $3. The only consumables are pencil or pen and the folding paper. While you can use expensive nicely designed oragami paper, you can also easily buy cheap paper (or wrapping paper) and use that. The idea is this, you write a story in pieces (number each one) and then you fold those pieces up into something significant to the story. Instructions on folding an oragami heart can be found here. The person gets to open the gift, see the oragami and then take it all apart and unfold the story. You can number the outside, or just let the person try to put the puzzle together.
3) The E-Bay wheel of fun – E-bay truly is a unique marketplace. While 80% of the items sold there are easily found in stores, there are some gems sold only on e-bay or in tiny boutiques. Take a few minutes and think about a person and come up with 3 or 4 descriptors about them. Then, add an item type to those descriptors. If the person is over-the-top, outgoing, and loves jewelry then search that – you’ll be shocked at what you find. Price usually is right as well.
4) The Unique Gift Card – While a Best-Buy or Target gift card is great for someone you barely know, it really screams: “I don’t know you well enough or care enough to get you a good gift.” A friend of mine receives about 10-15 Best-Buy gift cards every Christmas from family. The more specific the gift, the more thoughtful it is. For example, a reader would much more appreciate a gift card to a used bookstore or BookSwim. A movie watcher would love a netflix giftcard. If you get something too specific, you risk them returning it, but if you know someone is a pen enthusiast, and you find a cool custom pen-maker a gift-card there is very thoughtful and appreciated.
Do you have any quirky gift suggestions for this holiday season? How have you been pinching pennies (or have you not been) when it comes to gifts?
-Nick
Read the full article at Xavier.edu
Over the past three decades ,the cost of college textbooks has increased at twice the rate of inflation. Considering the current economic climate, the Xavier Senate hopes to provide direction for students who would like to find the best prices available…….
There are also websites that rent out textbooks. BookSwim.com….. Netflix-style service that deliver books right to your door.
The Xavier Book eXchange Board in the Gallagher Student Center is also a viable solution to expensive textbooks.
Senate further suggests that students make sure that they find out what books they will need by e-mailing their professors long before classes start so they have time to shop around to find the best prices.
Older editions of books are typically much more inexpensive, so asking professors if the current edition of a certain textbook is needed can go a long way.
Getting a book’s ISBN number, typically found on the back right corner of a book, can also be quite useful in making quick price comparisons.
Read the press release at PRWeb.com
New York (PRWEB) December 11, 2009 — BookSwim, America’s “Netflix-style” rental book club, has partnered with the affiliate network Commission Junction, to help web publishers and bloggers earn 30% commissions on every last-minute Christmas and holiday gift card referral.
“This Christmas Season, holiday shoppers don’t want to spend $25 on one hardcover when they could give readers five or more book rentals with a $25 BookSwim gift card,” said Jeevan Padiyar, CEO of Bookswim.
“The struggling publishing industry has been hit by consumer demand for lower-price media, started by iTunes and the 99-cent iPhone Apps trend,” continues Padiyar. “Amazon Kindle ebooks and the Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader device promise savings, but BookSwim is leading the growing book rental industry. We had an incredible 500% growth in BookSwim membership after our 2008 holiday gift card redemptions.”
“The landscape of blogging has changed as well,” said BookSwim Co-Founder and CMO George Burke. “Affiliate marketing programs, like Amazon Associates, are the new wave of direct sales. BookSwim is making it easy for anyone with access to a readership base, from professional writers to bloggers, and even Twitter or Facebook users, to earn some revenue.”
BookSwim invites bloggers to share in the company’s financial success during its busiest month. Bloggers can promote through web posts, articles, product reviews, holiday gift guides, RSS and news feeds, email marketing, blog commenting, podcasts, YouTube vlogs, tweets, and social media profiles.
CJ affiliates can get started earning eGift Card commissions at: http://www.bookswim.com/cj.
Affiliates can expect these resources and payouts:
* 15%-30% commission on gift cards.
* Easy, immediate integration for same-day campaign launch.
* Book rental catalog access (as a product data feed).
* Professional and regularly updated ad banners and text link “creatives.”
* Customized $10 off promo coupon codes.
Unlike the typical gift card, BookSwim makes an intelligent gift:
* BookSwim plants a tree for every gift card purchased to offset the paper used to produce new books.
* Earn $50 Restaurant.com certificates on eligible purchases
* Books are delivered to the home and returned via postal mail, so there’s no need to leave the house.
* For the non tech-savvy, a BookSwim account can be managed by the gift giver.
* Renting books is environmentally-friendly because fewer books are needed and fewer trees are consumed. And it saves gas, with no trips to the bookstore or library.
About BookSwim Corporation
Launched in May 2007, Newark, NJ-based BookSwim is the only online paperback and hardcover book rental library cub to subscribers through free round-trip shipping, no due dates or late fees, and unlimited rentals. With nationwide coverage, BookSwim rents hardcover new releases, paperback classics and everything in between. Subscription plans start at $9.95 per month, with an option for members to keep the books they love.
The illustrious Nick here at BookSwim has released the current bane of my existence. It’s a spelling game called Well Versed– and just as when I play Scrabble, I keep resorting to endless series of four-letter words. Can’t help it– ‘help’, ’soon’ and ‘hear’ are just so easy to identify in the scrambled word pool and give a pleasant little bump in my self-esteem every time.
Also, I have to ask: who is the illustrious RobinSki, our current all-time winner?
Try the game out and see how you fare! Hopefully, you’ll wrack up more 5+-letter words than I have.
–Chip
Read the full article at MomsLikeMe.com
I found this site that allows you to reserve books, have them sent to your home, read them at your leisure (no late fees) and return them when you are done, similar to Netflix but for books. Here’s the site.
Would you do this? I’m thinking that I would rather use the library, but then again, DH drives past it on his way to and from work, so it’s no big deal to reserve something and then have him pick it up. If I had to make a special trip to get stuff? Not sure.
So this website sounds interesting. Would you use something like this? Or give a subscription as a gift? Let us know your thoughts.
Every author has his or her own style when it comes to writing but a notable size of authors write while listening to music. Some authors choose to have the radio on in the background, whereas other choose to put their playlist on random. Quite a few even build a specific playlist for each book that they write. If you look up some of your favorite authors, they tend to post their playlists on their blogs. I personally fall into the last category where I select a choice few songs to listen to over and over while I write.
What I find odd with myself is that I like to read in total silence. My wife reads with music or TV on in the background, but me, I like to focus and concentrate on whatever I’m reading. Actually, I think its more that reading for me is not a creative process, and it strains my brain to try to digest the other stimulus as well as the emotions/thoughts I have from reading. For me, writing and reading are two very different processes.
I’ve also noticed that the playlists for many authors (at least the ones who actually complete books) tend to be short (no longer than 30 minutes long). For me, it has been very similar, and the size of the playlist has no bearing on the size of the text I’m writing.
In college, I did quite a bit of writing, ranging from 500 word short stories to 35,000 word novellas. In all cases, my playlist consisted of around six or seven songs. The only exception to that was when I put on a techno/trance song that was one-hour seventeen minutes long – which I listened to on repeat about 10 times to finish something I wrote. The music that drove my writing varied from techno to classical to industrial to Japanese pop.
How does music effect your reading? Do you listen to music when you read or write? Can you guess what music an author may have been listening to?
-Nick
Watch the video and read the article at WPIX.com
Keep it under 50 bucks. We’re sticking to a holiday shopping budget. Danielle DeMarne from Modelinia and supermodel Selita Ebanks were here with a few gift ideas for everyone on your list.
For Women
- Beautiful Bling Watch ($49.90) by Curations
- 40’s Faux Fur Scarves ($39) by Curations
- Leather Gloves with Faux Trim ($49.90) by Curations
- Metal Mesh Clutch ($49) by Express
- Beaded Clutch ($44.50) by Express
From Modelinia
- Jewelry (all under $50) Grayce by Molly Sims
- Elle Make Better DVD|starring Brooklyn Decker ($19.95)
For Men
- Cufflinks ($39.50) by Banana Republic
- Wool Scarves ($50) by Banana Republic
- Big Papi Hot Sauce ($10.99)
For Teens
- Fingerless Gloves by Express or Curations
- BookSwim.com
For Children
- All Items from Moomah ($8 – $22)
Read the full article at WPIX.com
As a result of challenging economic times, many women and men today are looking for newer, smarter ways to shop. Many companies are offering people an entirely NEW way to shop – allowing them to rent vs. buy – during a time when consumers are really looking for alternatives to buying.
Renting gives access to luxury without the guilt, clutter or commitment of ownership.
Avelle, at www.avelle.com is the new Bag Borrow or Steal, offering everyone access to luxury and a new way to shop. They were the first rented luxury retailer and remain the biggest.
The experience of renting from Avelle is not only about convenience and flexibility, but more importantly, having access to more. Renting gives members the opportunity to indulge in all the latest trends, always have the perfect accessory and quite simply, enjoy more of the luxury they love.
Avelle allows everyone to experience luxury by providing access to the most coveted designer handbags, jewelry and sunglasses from high-end designers, including Chanel, Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton and Vera Wang.
Borrowing designer accessories at Avelle is easy. You can borrow accessories by the week or the month. You can keep an item for as long as you’d like and when you are done with it, return it for a new one. Many members borrow multiple accessories at a time.
For members who fall in love with the accessory they’ve borrowed, they have the option to purchase it.
If you’re still shopping for your daughters or your sisters, try Rent the Runway.
Rent a Runway offers designer dresses for rent at an amazing price, starting at just $50.
Designers include Herve Leger, Proenza Schouler, Helmut Lang, Alice & Olivia, Brian Reyes, and more – with new ones being added every day
Dresses available for rent include a Vena Cava Disco Diva Shift. This is a $75 rental which retails for $750 Or consider a Lela Rose Strapless Bow Dress. This is a $150 rental which retails for $1,250.
Gift cards are available for the holidays at different price points as well as packages such as the Dress of the Month Club, A Dress for Every Season, etc.
They’ll deliver same day in Manhattan; next day around the country or you can reserve in advance and the dress will arrive at your doorstep beautifully packaged in a garment bag with a “fit kit” (which includes Braza items such as double sided tape, deodorant wipe, and magic clip bra converter) and when you’re done you can just pop it any mailbox.
If you’re shopping for sons and brothers consider GameFly.
GameFly is the #1 online video game rental service offering members more than 7,000 video game titles, including new releases and hard-to-find classics at a reasonable price. You can start for as low as $8.95 for the first month. Just go to gamefly.com to sign up. GameFly members can rent games and keep them for as long as they like; no due dates, no late fees.
If you love a game you are playing, you can buy it from GameFly at a great discount. GameFly will mail you the original packaging and manuals.
For Dad’s how about Guitar Affair.
(The Guitar featured on the show: Gigliotti Joe Bonamassa GT Custom electric guitar. The manufacturer is Gigliotti, pronounced Ja lot ee (kind of like Gelato but with a long e at the end) Gilgiotti is a small manufacturer in Washington State that makes very high end, hand crafted guitars.The model is a signature model of a very famous blues guitarist named Joe Bonamassa.)
Guitar Affair helps guitar enthusiasts to enjoy their hobby when they are traveling for business or pleasure. It is becoming a huge hassle to carry a guitar when on travel, especially for business travelers.
Also, like car enthusiasts, guitar lovers want to try out beautiful instruments no matter how many they own themselves.
One of these guitars is a Gigliotti Joe Bonamassa GT Custom electric guitar. The manufacturer is Gigliotti, pronounced Ja lot ee (kind of like Gelato but with a long e at the end) Gilgiotti is a small manufacturer in Washington State that makes very high end, hand crafted guitars.The model is a signature model of a very famous blues guitarist named Joe Bonamassa.)
With Guitar Affair, they can have a beautiful, hand-crafted guitar like this one, waiting for you at your hotel when travelling on business, or vacation. Use it while you’re there.
You also get an amp, training materials, or anything else guitar related.
When they are done, they simply close up the case, put on the return label, and drop it off at the concierge or any UPS shipping location.
The process is simple. Go to www.guitaraffair.com, join Guitar Affair, and reserve the instrument you want to play. We take care of the rest.
Try BookSwim for a loved one who loves to read.
Many people now keeping themselves to a strict budget, cringe at the thought of inevitable holiday expenses. That’s why BookSwim (www.BookSwim.com), the Netflix for books is offering a $10 gift certificate for everyone on your holiday gift list! Begin the year off with a reading head start by suggesting your favorite book for your friend! We are offering a coupon code FREEGIFT10.
Select the special readers on your shopping list, add money to their gift card to give a few months or a full year of BookSwim.
Remember the first $10 of every gift card is on us.
*Add $50, get a bonus gift of $50 Restaurant.com certificate for you or the gift recipient.
*Or double it with $100 to Restaurant.com with each $100 BookSwim gift card
I fell in love with independent bookstores one rainy September night in the Lower East Side of New York City, back in the Halcyon days of my ill-spent youth. We(others shall remain nameless)’d finally but cheerfully been chased out of a bar two hours after last call, when all the trains back to New Jersey had stopped for the night. A man we’d just met in the bar asked if we wanted to stop by his store for awhile, and with nowhere else to go, my friend (looking greener every minute) and I took him up on the invitation.
Once we pulled the gate up and ducked inside, my friend scuttled into the bathroom and the man proceeded to tell me about the darkened room while making cups of fair trade coffee. “A lot of love went into this room,” he said, eyes clearly shining with pride and a touch of weariness, while I surveyed an area slightly larger than my kitchen with dim shelves and books with unfamiliar names. He talked about how being forty and barely affording his New York apartment became worthwhile because it meant making this place possible.
It was only weeks after my (arguably conscious) friend and I stumbled out to the subway that we realized where we had been. Turns out my friend had retreated into the bathroom of one of the last independent radical bookstores in New York City, the kind of place where you go to meet reincarnated Beat novelists, Palestinian slam poets, radical queer activists, dumpster-diving freegans with dredlocks who survive on $10 a week, genderqueer feminists and modern-day Pagans. Y’know– the kinds of people we go to cities to gawk and laugh and wonder at (and sometimes wind up becoming).
As one reviewer remarks on yelp.com: “If there’s a better selection of books and tools in New York to help you challenge the Eurocentric, masculinist knowledge validation process and oppose all of the false assumptions undergirding the hegemonic paradigm, I’m not aware of it.” And there’s the glory and downfall of independent bookstores in a long-winded erudite nutshell.
When we write down our To Read lists, what kinds of books do we establish as worthwhile? What do we wind up reading, if anything? If a long day of work leaves our minds reeling and craving nothing but a light Janet Evanovich, when do we create spaces in our lives for Beauvoir, Burroughs, even Homer– the heavy stuff of intellectual transformation? I’m saying this as a former English major down to maybe five completed books a year.
There were times when the opening of a radical bookstore meant the defiant expression of an alternate culture, a subversive stream of thought carving its space into the ordinary world. It sometimes meant
telephone threats, bomb threats, windows broken, in the case of the store Lambda Rising (soon to close). And how radical the effects are when that tiny defiance gathers voices and grows! How vital our bookstores were when they were the only places in all the mute world where we could hear our own voices! When New Jersey is on the verge of becoming the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage equality, it’s hard to imagine what life must have been like when that gay bookstore’s survival was in doubt.
The time for radical bookstores may be passing, or so that man said to me back on that September night, talking about the rent in Manhattan that had chased all the other radical bookstores from the area. And the internet has opened other kinds of avenues for culture to germinate and flourish.
For all the convenience of the online world, though– some nights, what I wouldn’t give to sip a cup of fair trade coffee between ill-lit, cramped shelves…
Read the full article at DeepDyve.com
…….There are also Netflix type services for books, such as Bookswim, where customers can rent physical books on a monthly subscription service……
Read the full article at AmericanChronicle.com
Let me introduce you to Bookswim.com or 1-877-Bookswim. Bookswim is your non-traditional book renter. Norm Goldman, editor/owner of Bookpleasures was approached by the owner of Bookswim to review his services and products, but Norm lived in Canada and the books could not ship to Canada so he asked me if I would be willing to review this relatively new service provider. I accepted this challenge and the results of that review are below.
Bookswim.com is an easily navigable web site for renting books of various genres by numerous authors and that ease of navigability helps make this process more enjoyable. There are a variety of plans to pick from depending on how much/little you read and what best fits your budget. Prices range from $9.95 per month to $59.95 per month depending on how many or few books you like to read. I just noticed that for a short while Bookswim is running a special where you can sign up for any plan for just $9.95! And that includes shipping both ways too!
The first thing you do is check which plan best fits your thirst to read, select next, fill in your account and shipping information, determine if you want the free shipping or expedited shipping (faster if you want it that way, but also incurs additional costs), and then begin selecting the types of books you like to read. You can search for books according to title or author. There are old and new books, title-wise and so many to choose from that you will feel like you are at a book store instead of sitting at your laptop.
I was given a two month free membership in order to perform this review, but the owner, Norm, and I may be the only ones who were aware of that. I followed all of the steps detailed above and waited for an e-mail confirmation that my order was being compiled and shipped. All started out fine and both confirmations came along without a hitch. A few days later I received an e-mail telling me that my selections could not ship as anticipated, but no other explanations were given. I replied to customer service and the owner asking them what was amiss and why those books could not ship. A few days later I got a reply and the books were shipped. The books arrived a week or so later, exactly as I had originally reserved. I had one Stuart Woods book, one Michael Crichton, and the newest Dan Brown novel in that parcel. The next mishap came when there was no return label. Remember I was being treated like a regular customer and this is perhaps the very best one can hope for in a review sense. I called the 877 number listed above and spoke to an actual person who was concerned and helpful in remedying this problem. The return label arrived a few days after that call to customer service. I devoured and enjoyed them all and I´ve just sent them all back.
If I were asked to rate their service on a scale of one to ten, ten being the top, I would give them a ten for customer service and an eight for my first experience with them. Not bad all things considered. So if any of you are looking for a unique way to read without spending a lot of money purchasing your favorite authors this may be something you want to consider. You can tweak it to work however you want and suspend or cancel your membership at any time without penalty. What more could you ask for? Jump right in and join Bookswim.com.
Read the full article at gURL.com
Thoughtful Treats
Animoto.com: Got a ton of video clips and pictures lying around? Use Animoto to create a truly one of a kind video gift for your friends. They’ll be impressed with your professionally styled clips!
Bookswim.com: Give the gift of reading! For a monthly membership of $9.99, you pick the books you want to read and they’ll ship ‘em directly to your house. It’s basically a Netflix for books– now the library is at your fingertips!
Shutterfly.com: If scrapbooking sounds like too much work for you, the next best thing is a photobook. A $50 gift card will be included in the bundle so you can design a great book!
Mypublisher.com: For $22.95, it’s a gift anyone will need. Make it more fun by plopping in your own design and personalizing it with pictures.
Read the full article at TalentZoo.com
By now, most people have heard of Netflix, the video-rental service that allows you to queue up movies so you can have them delivered free to your door, keep them as long as you need, and return them free so you can receive your next bit of entertainment. They do this without individual rental fees or late charges like the local brick-and-mortar video store. Instead, you pay a monthly fee based on how many movies you want to watch.
During the past few years, a similar concept has been chipping away at local bookstores and libraries, too. Dubbing themselves, “The Netflix of books,” BookSwim provides people with free delivery and returns on books in exchange for a monthly fee.
BookSwim offers hardcovers and paperbacks, bestsellers and classics — and has recently started offering textbooks as well. Plans start at $9.95 per month for one book at a time and range as high as $59.95 per month for up to 11 books at a time. (Note the cheapest plan does not include free shipping — BookSwim tacks on a $3.99 shipping and handling fee for each book.) One advantage over Netflix is that BookSwim will let you hang onto one book while you’re waiting for the next one to arrive.
The concept seems pretty solid, and depending on your circumstances, you may find it’s a good deal. Do you have a lot of time to read books? Do you find yourself with less space in your house because you’ve spent your money on books and can’t afford to buy a place with the room to store them? Do you live in a remote location not near a bookstore or a library? Are you a student who is tired of playing the game of textbook roulette? (That’s the game in which you pay exorbitant amounts of money for a book you will use for just a few months and then not be able to sell back because a professor or publisher has decided a new edition is the one needed in class next semester.)
New hardcover books easily sell for $25 or more, and even paperbacks start at around $5 or $6, so I can see the benefits of such a program, although I found $60 a month a bit of a setback when reviewing the plans. I guess I don’t have that much time to read, and I can’t imagine needing 11 books available at once. However, I’m sure there are people who would do that much reading, and maybe $60 a month ends up saving them a lot of money. Sure, they could go to the local library, but as BookSwim points out, libraries don’t always have many copies, and you do have to worry about renewals and late fees. Some people have a hard time getting out to a bookstore or library due to age or mobility issues. BookSwim also touts their “try it before you buy it” concept, where you can buy a book you’ve rented if you decide it’s a keeper.
I couldn’t figure out on their Web site how much a book was going to cost if you decided to keep it, but otherwise, I was impressed with the clean layout of BookSwim. It seems easy to navigate and operate. I went seeking basic information about the service so I could write about it. The information was easy to find, and their services were explained in simple terms. There’s a search box for author, title, subject — even the ISBN number. Once you land on a book you’re interested in, BookSwim offers you ideas for other titles by that author and recommendations for other authors and titles you might enjoy.
There are already a lot of books stacked up in my house from purchases I’ve made — both new and used — so I’m not ready to dive into BookSwim, but I could see where this could work out well for some people. You’d need to calculate what you’re spending now to see if the value is there. By value, calculate money, time, and space — something that buying books the old-fashioned way takes.
Now, if only I had more time to read — hey, maybe if I just stopped blogging so much.
Still not on the eBook bandwagon? Then check out BookSwim, a book rental club that offers newly released novels and nonfiction bestsellers published in hardcover format. $9.95 per month will get you one book at a time with free UPS shipping on returns (you have to pay $3.99 to get books sent you). Other plans offer more books and free shipping both ways. For the holidays, BookSwim is offering a free $10 gift certificate to anyone. You can even send one to yourself.
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