Monday, July 09, 2007

Book Mooch: Training Ground for Future Booksellers

A month ago First Daughter discovered Book Mooch. This site is a book swap site and is a way to unload of books that have worthless resale value.

Now, suddenly, she is interested in bookselling tasks that have never been of interest before. She has learned that it's a bother to fill out customs forms and learned the hard way that it is much too expensive to swap books with someone overseas.. She knows about the wonders of the Priority Mail flat rate envelope. She even knows how to package a book in b-flute and volunteered to package some of my orders. She designed her own shipping labels and, for cost-effectiveness, has decided to ditch the b-flute in favor of wrapping them in paper bags (they are cheap paperbacks).

Now I know what it's like to be on the other end. I have made trips to the post office and stood in line because she needed to ship books, not because I needed to ship anything. It's tedious. She dragged me to a library bag sale on Saturday - a sale that I would not normally attend. I wandered aimlessly and got bored and was ready to go home much sooner than she was. Just like my kids when I'm at a sale and engrossed in the task of finding inventory.

The amount of book clutter in the house is much reduced now, thanks to her efforts. She's starting a collection of books in a particular niche and Book Mooch packages arrive almost daily.

She doesn't seem ready to take the Amazon plunge yet and look for books with at least a $10 resale value. Someday, maybe, she'll be assimilated. For now I'll enjoy having someone to complain to the next time I have to fill out a customs form. And who knows. Maybe I'll start book mooching too.


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