Hm, well, I'm afraid I (annoyingly!) don't think these are 2 separate problems, actually. Although my proposed solution may not be the correct one, there is a problem here that wants an explanation. Yes, of course everyone in the world posts Dan Brown. That's inevitable, but it doesn't have to prevent an exchange from working. I'm suggesting that the fact that "the majority of books available on BookMooch are Dan Brown" is not an immutable first cause, because I know for a fact it doesn't have to be that way, even though there is certainly a global Dan Brown glut.
Bow & I are avid users of the US-only PaperbackSwap. People want to get rid of their Dan Brown just as much on PBS as anywhere. But, since the exchange is functional, there are a lot of other books on it, too. I've mailed over 100 books, none by Dan Brown, and received almost 40 - good books, that I wanted, most in very good condition. Just two weeks ago, I requested all the books for my summer course, and I already have 2 of them. The reason I send more books than I receive is that I have too many books, and also that I can convert the credits and use them for other media (CDs and DVDs). Also, I often give away books that people leave in the laundry room, etc. My trade imbalance is not because good books aren't available (though you often have to wait).
Given the number of Anglophone readers in the world, a similar global exchange should work - if nothing was distorting it. As you point out, it would be more expensive, and that would discourage some people. The US mail is also pretty fast. So maybe a non-US exchange would have less traffic. But it should still be viable.
Of course everyone, everywhere, hopes to unload crap. That doesn't explain the *difference* between PBS & BookMooch. The question is, what incentives are there to unload non-crap. I am suggesting that the shitty selection at BM (!) comes, not from an intrinsic inability of book exchanges to work because of the global Dan Brown glut, but (at least partly) from the combination of US and non-US members - although of course that's just one theory. BookMooch has gotten off balance because demand for (non-Dan Brown) books there greatly exceeds supply, and that is self-perpetuating. It's almost as if they had a large block of members who were demanding but not supplying :D. I'm sure they have many members like me and Bow, who only mail to BookMooch what PBS can't take. And that could throw the whole thing into a death spiral. Just having a lot of certain crappy books is not enough to kill a book exchange, any more than a few copies of Frampton Comes Alive are enough to kill as used record store.
Another thing that happens on PBS, that doesn't seem to happen on BookMooch, is that people will mail new books - remaindered books that they get for almost nothing, review copies, etc. There are various incentives for this - the books they can get with credits are worth more than what they paid for the remaindered books, people can actually sell credits (buying credits is cheaper than buying on Amazon, but this only helps in a robust market where there is good stuff to order), and/or they may want the credits to use on another exchange.
Where there are good things and a faith that things will become available, the system keeps getting stronger. Where there aren't, the market will keep getting worse. I think that the asymmetry between US and other users could be a factor that pushed BookMooch into a downward spiral.
Incidentally, the "swap-a-dvd" system does *not* work so well, though it's still better than BookMooch. I've gotten quite a few things, but I've had some trouble, and some things never come up, and some things I've ordered I now can't get rid of. I think there are a variety of factors there, that with even more thought could be illuminating.
Because I am always bored by all the things I am supposed to do, and need to exercise my brain!
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Date: 2010-03-15 03:33 pm (UTC)Bow & I are avid users of the US-only PaperbackSwap. People want to get rid of their Dan Brown just as much on PBS as anywhere. But, since the exchange is functional, there are a lot of other books on it, too. I've mailed over 100 books, none by Dan Brown, and received almost 40 - good books, that I wanted, most in very good condition. Just two weeks ago, I requested all the books for my summer course, and I already have 2 of them. The reason I send more books than I receive is that I have too many books, and also that I can convert the credits and use them for other media (CDs and DVDs). Also, I often give away books that people leave in the laundry room, etc. My trade imbalance is not because good books aren't available (though you often have to wait).
Given the number of Anglophone readers in the world, a similar global exchange should work - if nothing was distorting it. As you point out, it would be more expensive, and that would discourage some people. The US mail is also pretty fast. So maybe a non-US exchange would have less traffic. But it should still be viable.
Of course everyone, everywhere, hopes to unload crap. That doesn't explain the *difference* between PBS & BookMooch. The question is, what incentives are there to unload non-crap. I am suggesting that the shitty selection at BM (!) comes, not from an intrinsic inability of book exchanges to work because of the global Dan Brown glut, but (at least partly) from the combination of US and non-US members - although of course that's just one theory. BookMooch has gotten off balance because demand for (non-Dan Brown) books there greatly exceeds supply, and that is self-perpetuating. It's almost as if they had a large block of members who were demanding but not supplying :D. I'm sure they have many members like me and Bow, who only mail to BookMooch what PBS can't take. And that could throw the whole thing into a death spiral. Just having a lot of certain crappy books is not enough to kill a book exchange, any more than a few copies of Frampton Comes Alive are enough to kill as used record store.
Another thing that happens on PBS, that doesn't seem to happen on BookMooch, is that people will mail new books - remaindered books that they get for almost nothing, review copies, etc. There are various incentives for this - the books they can get with credits are worth more than what they paid for the remaindered books, people can actually sell credits (buying credits is cheaper than buying on Amazon, but this only helps in a robust market where there is good stuff to order), and/or they may want the credits to use on another exchange.
Where there are good things and a faith that things will become available, the system keeps getting stronger. Where there aren't, the market will keep getting worse. I think that the asymmetry between US and other users could be a factor that pushed BookMooch into a downward spiral.
Incidentally, the "swap-a-dvd" system does *not* work so well, though it's still better than BookMooch. I've gotten quite a few things, but I've had some trouble, and some things never come up, and some things I've ordered I now can't get rid of. I think there are a variety of factors there, that with even more thought could be illuminating.
Because I am always bored by all the things I am supposed to do, and need to exercise my brain!