Thursday, September 14, 2006

Frugal Reader

I have a new favorite thing: Frugal Reader. I'm especially primed to like it, because earlier this week I took a bunch of books to my favorite local bookstore, and was only able to sell 2 for a whopping $4.50 in store credit. Woo hoo.

With this plan, you list the books you're willing to part with. Then you get 1 free credit for listing 5 books (10 for 2). After that you get to shop!! You can pick a book from someone else's list and they'll mail it to you for you to keep, or relist when you're done. Everytime you send out a book (usually for $1.59 in postage) you get another credit.

What about the library? You might ask. Or you might not if you knew my track record with library fines.

2 comments:

fshusband said...

When we lived in Germantown, MD, the Montgomery County library system had a great online presence. We could search the entire system's catalog and have books delivered to our nearest branch. When we were a couple days from due dates, they'd send an email notification, from which we could extend our due date (unless the book was exceedingly popular and had a limited due date period).

I know that Seattle's a backwater compared to semi-rural Maryland, but perhaps your library system has moved into the late 20th Century by now.

Robin L. said...

Sadly, that's exactly how Seattle's library system works. It's just like shopping on Amazon. I can usually keep up for a few weeks without incurring egregious fines... then Kira will have a book stashed under her bed or I'll *think* I took one back and the whole thing goes to pot!