Read the full article at ShoestringMag.com

Book lovers lament that “no one reads anymore,” but four websites are proving that millions of people worldwide do still crave the tangible tome — they’re just getting smarter about how they acquire them.

We’re not just talking about Google eBooks and Amazon Kindles here, we’re talking about real, book-smell-smelling books with a spine and the seriously active social communities who love and are willing to share them — both in review and in the pulp.

BookSwim.com
Like many a college student, recent grad, or otherwise cash-poor bookworm, George Burke has logged some serious hours lurking in Barnes & Noble cafes, reading book after book for free — and, luckily for him, that lead him and his co-founder to the idea for BookSwim. “Realizing the value of the books we’d burned through and that we didn’t pay a cent for them — and looking around the cafe at others reading books just to put them back — it struck us that THAT was the business plan we should start,” Burke said.

BookSwim launched in May of 2007 on a similar “Netflix” rental model, only for books instead of movies. Plans start at $9.95 per month, a “one book at a time” plan for occasional readers, and BookSwim also offers a de facto try-before-you-buy service, allowing members to purchase (at a discount) the books they’ve read and loved enough to own.

“We take care of all the shipping and the books arrive directly at your home, so there’s no need to pay for gas or postage,” Burke said. “I think most of our members are readers who wish they had more time, but because of everything that’s going on in their lives, they have a tough time justifying to themselves the time spent going to a library or bookstore. So they rely on BookSwim to rent most if not all of their reading material, whether classics or new releases, eliminating the need to schedule an extra trip around store hours. And if time is money, well, we practically make all of our readers millionaires.”

Buying secondhand or vintage gifts or acquiring things by swapping is soaring in popularity for some people — and is actually expected to increase this year, according to BrandWeek — so sites like BookSwim are trying unique approaches for luring in holiday shoppers, like “free $10 gift cards to friends and family.” For more information on their special offers and their partnership with Restaurant.com, check out BookSwim.com………

So, what are these book-loving startup-junkies reading?

………..”Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel is a book my CTO Nick Ruffilo just handed to me. It’s about leveraging the interconnectedness between people to pass a message that will resonate with friends, and friends of friends, and so on. He won the book, coincidentally through one of the hundreds of GoodReads giveaways, which represents an effective viral distribution channel employed by this book. I thrive on books like this, so it shouldn’t take long to read… especially since he placed sticky notes on the important pages for me. :-)” ~ George Burke, founder of Bookswim.com

Read the full article at ShoestringMag.com