One Half of a Paperback Swap, Successful

Some of you will remember about six months ago when I blogged about Paperbackswap.com. Well, up until about a week ago that was as far as I got with the service. I opened an account and wrote about how great it seemed like the service would be if I ever moved further into the process...and I didn't.

I have SO many books, most of which I know I'll never read, and yet I couldn't bring myself to part with even one of them. So I never listed anything. Months later I hatched a plan. Instead of trading the books I currently have, I'd keep an eye out for terribly cheap or free books that I had no interest in, and swap those instead. I got my first chance to pick up a few books in that category at the annual Abell Avenue festival that happens just down the street from us. Each year some organization sets out a table full of free books. Perfect for my purposes. I picked up eight or nine that I had no interest in but thought other people might, and posted five of them on Paperback Swap, which gives you one free credit.

I've recently taken a strong shine to a new author (new to me, at least), Robert Charles Wilson. I just finished Darwinia, an excellent book featuring an alternate history of the 20th Century in which most of Europe, people, structures and all is, in an unexplainable instant, replaced by an untamed wilderness of unknown origin. Wilson's writing style is exactly what I look for in an author; fluid, descriptive, detailed, and deeply imaginative. I used my free credit to request another novel of his, Spin, which I started tonight. I'm a chapter and a half in and I'm already hooked.

So far my experience with Paperback Swap is all positive. It seems to work flawlessly. You enter your books using the ISBN number printed on the spine. Very simple. And the book I requested was mailed to me by its owner within a few days, arriving soon after in perfect condition (obviously used, but in no worse condition for having been sent through the mail.) It cost the sender $2.38 in postage, and I imagine I can assume whatever book I send out now (when one of them is requested) will be about the same. Less than $2.50 to swap a book you don't want for a book you very much do is a great deal. It's a win-win, because each member of the swap spends the same and gets exactly the book they want.

Brilliant.

Escaping into a Good Book

As I've mentioned a number of times on this blog, books are a favorite item of mine. I've talked about my fascination with shopping for books, buying books, and owning books, but I've yet to mention how much I enjoy reading them. Buying and owning are pointless without using. You can buy racks and racks of clothing, but if you don't wear them, you'll be thrown in jail for indecent exposure (which will give you plenty of time to read a book.)

It often take me a few chapters to really get into a book. I've put down and never finished many, many books because they sparked but never combusted. But once I'm sucked in, I'm in for good. I hate putting the book down, and generally charge head-long for the finish as quickly as possible. But the funny thing is my sprint for the finish has a two-prong reason. One is obvious. I'm into the story and want to know how it plays out. But I'm also at that point thinking about the next book I want to read, and I find myself wanting to finish my current book so I can move on.

I'm like a serial lover of books in that way. I fall in love with a book, which makes me fall in love with falling in love with books, which leads me to think about other books and how great it would be to fall in love and read those books. Once I'm in that mode I can devour book after book, a cycle that finally ends when I hit a book that just doesn't measure up. I lose interest, in that moment, not just with that particular story, but with reading in general. It sometimes takes a few months before I find a book that starts the cycle over again.

Thankfully I have a lot of books to serve as kindling.

Zombies Make Anything Better

I don't know what it is about zombies, but they can turn anything into gold. Greatest music video of all time? Thriller...zombies. Most of the great horror movies?...involve zombies. Most enduring video game franchise ever, besides Mario Brothers? Resident Evil...all about zombies.

I assert that you can take anything, insert zombies, and make it better. Most of the classic novel forms can accept zombies. Zombies in space is sci-fi brilliance. Throw zombies into the old west and you've got the recipe for a mean western. Romance novels can be insipid. But throw in a few zombies and you've got a winner. In fact writer Seth Grahame-Smith just published Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a zombie filled send up of Jane Austen's classic novel.

Movie's like Shaun of the Dead and Fido (where zombies are equipped with special control collars and kept as pets) show the versatility of the zombie genre. Zombies just evoke a reaction in us that almost no other character type does. They're us. But not us. Any of us could become one of them. The enemy then is potentially everyone.

I'm working on the zombification of a classic family card game. Early play testing shows it's got legs. Rotten maggot-filled legs, hefting a decrepifying, brain-hungry monster, but legs.

Self-Publishing

Web 2.0 has opened up a myriad of services to the common man that were unthinkable even ten years ago. One of those is the self-publishing of printed books. Services like Lulu.com and others bring limited run printing to the masses. Lulu in particular allows anyone to upload content, have it printed and bound and then sold in the Lulu marketplace. Even offline companies are now allowing much smaller runs of printed book material than ever before. For me though, the online realm is most exciting, as it doubles as a marketing and promotion tool.

A group of us are about to embark on a self-printing experiment. Each of the four group members will get 25 pages out of a 100 page book to use as they see fit. Fiction. Poetry. Biography. Anything goes. Each member will get to edit, comment on and rate all of the other members' work. In the end we'll self-publish the book by some mechanism or another and attempt to promote it.

It's exciting because before the self-publishing revolution what we're attempting to do was almost entirely outside the realm of possibility, without strong financial backing. Limited and one-off runs didn't happen, so a large upfront expenditure of capital was required. Now anyone can publish. That means a lot of garbage will wind up in the marketplace, I know. We might even be contributing to that...who knows. But some of this brave, new content will be very, very good, and will finally be able to get into the hands of readers.

It's funny to me that as people that herald this sort of thing are heralding the demise of the printed word, services like Lulu are popping up, allowing a more democratic, ubiquitous world of printed words.

Naysayers...you're wrong.

I'll Send You Mine if You Send Me Yours

It may be a bit early for this post, but tonight (I don't know you that well yet, but thanks, Mela) I was turned on to paperbackswap.com, and all instruments register an 8.9 on the Richter Scale of Radical!

Anyone that's read previous posts knows that I can't control myself around used book sales.  One book becomes ten books, which eventually becomes an old Sutter Home White Zinfandel box full of books (the box isn't mine...it came with the books.)  So needless to say I have shelves and shelves and boxes and stacks of mostly unread reading material.  What's an overzealous bibliophile to do?

Swap them.  Paperbackswap.com is exactly what you'd imagine it would be.  List all the books you want to get rid of and receive credits when another user requests one of them.  That user pays nothing for your book, and you pay to ship it.  You then use your credits to "buy" books from other users, and they pay for that shipping.  No money changes hands directly between the parties involved.  You're truly trading books (and CDs and DVDs) with a very large community of people.

I just signed up for an account and tomorrow sometime I think I'll peruse my shelves and shelves and boxes and stacks for grist for the trading mill.  I will say though that my book addiction is tinged with the collecting bug.  Reading the book is important, of course, but that rarely happens.  The "having of" the book is motivation plenty.  It remains to be seen whether I can find books I can part with.  I'm hoping I have a copy of "Potat-OH!: An Illustrated History of Tubers" that I can get rid of.

Note: If any of you sign up after reading this entry, use jdbloom@comcast.net when they ask who referred you.  Apparently I get some small bonus.

Note Also: I didn't write this entry in order to get the above-mentioned bonus.  I just think the idea is a really good one.  If you agree, remember who told you about it.

Note As Well: The Richter Scale of Radical doesn't actually exist.  And that registers very low on the Richter Scale of Radical.

The Power of Retail Therapy

I'm not one to push consumerism.  Spending money just to spend money is frivolous and wasteful.  But spending small amounts of money on yourself when you need a little boost is great! Down in the dumps?  Boss been kicking you in the teeth again?  Your 401k balance retreating faster than the polar ice caps?  Go buy yourself something you want.  Not need.  Want.

Really.  Nothing big.  I might buy a book, or some socks...or a book.  Getting something new always seems to recharge me.  But I keep it small.  Retail therapy only works if you don't go into debt in the process.  That brings with it a whole raft of new worries, more purchases, and eventually pitches you into a downward spiral which ends with you living on the street, panhandling for socks and books and feeling even worse than you did before.

Just keep your purchases small and sporadic, and you'll be surprised at how much lighter you'll feel.  Let's take Kate as an example.  She's having a rough day and needs a little pick-me-up.  She could sit on a therapists couch for an hour and part with $150.00 plus change for the meter, or she can go to Urban Outfitters and spend $15.00 on a new hat.  It's the same hour, but it costs 10 times less and she has a new hat when she's finished.  You won't get a hat from a therapist.  That's a guarantee.

Or a book.  And after last week, a new book is exactly what I need.  I think I know what I'm doing tomorrow afternoon.  

Reading's Delightful

I love that I can say what I'm about to say again, it's been 10 years since I've been able to truly say that I enjoy reading a good book. I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying this only 100 pages into the first novel I've really enjoyed in a long while. I did finish reading two other books this past year, one being the Jenna Jameson Bio "How to Make Love like a Porn Star" and "Lovely Bones." Both were pretty good and I was happy I got through them, but neither one truly captured my attention like "Twilight" is doing right now. I feel like others might think I'm reading a teeny bopper book, but it's not and I feel a lot of older women would enjoy it and probably have. It does give you dirty thoughts about hot teenagers. I haven't enjoyed reading like this since I read the VC Andrew's Dawn series in High School, there might have been a few other small delights along the way that I can't recall. Hopefully I keep it up...this blog entry could be a healthy motivator. Reading a beautifully written novel is a wonderful thing. Falling asleep now, losing my abilty to type...Goodnight!

Reading (on the Cheap) is Fundamental

I'm not much of a shopper.  I tire out pretty quickly and lose interest.  Clothes shopping is the real killer.  Kate can attest to that.  I do pretty well with electronics and oddly, flea markets and art shows.  But stick me in a used bookstore, and hours disappear.  I love regular bookstores, too, but the cheaper than cheap, bargain basement, two steps away from using books as kindling stores are my favorite.

There's one in particular, in Wheaton, that I go back to again and again.  Not only are the books cheap; most paperbacks are one to two dollars, but they're also in decently good condition, alphabetized on shelves, and categorized by genre.  It's a wonderland!  It's as if some incredibly anal librarian with no concept of money let people come down into her basement and shop from her personal collection.  And I'm all too happy to take advantage.

I think what I love most about it, apart from the visceral sensation I get thumbing through racks of books, is the experimentation dirt cheap books affords you.  I can buy books I'd never think of paying full, or even half price for.  Books that I've never heard of but just have an interesting title, cool cover art or an author whose last name rhymes with some funny word.  I've discovered some really awesome books by scanning at random and buying in bulk.  I can't help but walk out every time I go in with a cardboard box full of books.

And since Kate and I have run out of places to store all those books, it's a good thing. Cardboard boxes store much better in the attic than plastic bags.  Who needs bookshelves?