BookSwim promises an online book rental service that works like Netflix does. I am wondering if it will get off the ground, as much as whether it will be successful.
- Books have a much lesser audience these days
- There are a lot more books than Movies released every year
- Readers have pretty specific tastes, especially when it comes to non-fiction — where a person might want to read books on something that might sound obscure to me
- Books might just cost more than DVDs in some case - think hundreds of dollars
- Books have a limited re-usable life after which they get dog-eared, torn, ripped etc
- Unethical customers might tear out a page - making the book un-reusable
- Libraries are still alive and kicking
- It takes 3 hours to watch a movie, around 3 days to read a book - so subscribers get less “value” per dollar with books, for the same subscription amount - how much cheaper will bookswim be, and how will hey manage it?
Considering all these factors it is difficult to see how they will make any profit, given the no-late-fees, free-postage deal they are offering. The site is set to launch this first quarter of 2007, but it looks like they are still looking for financers. There is a brochure touching upon why bookswim is an appealing idea, but it is superficial in some respects.
Thanks to the distant librarian who brought this in my field of view. The site he links to has some commetary too.
I’ll have to wait and see what rates and benefits they offer before signing up - owning a good book is still pretty high on my list of priorities, so renting a book does not seem too attractive - if I like the book, I’ll probably end up buying it, so it would be neat if bookswim offered the possibility of renting-to-own, for a small additional price.
4 responses so far ↓
Interview with George Burke - BookSwim’s Owner | Routine Order // Mar 13, 2007 at 2:33 pm
[…] Joe Wikert interviews George Burke, who owns, or works for BookSwim. I had written about Bookswim (Bookswim: Netflix for Books) earlier. This interview puts some things straight - like how they plan to fix the problem of super heavy books and their postage. The solution is that they won’t stock textbooks, or catalogs, or any other backbreakers. They also will be shipping media mail, so service might be slow. $15 for a 3-books-out-at-a-time service seems okay to me. Also, it seems like they will offer readers the ability to own the books they rent at a discounted price. So will they end up being a used-books seller more than a Netflix-like lending service? […]
Bookswim Prices - Alpha Testing // May 8, 2007 at 5:00 pm
[…] Bookswim is an online book rental library, much like Netflix, only for books. I had first written about BookSwim’s launch plans and then I had posted a link to the interview with Bookswim’s creator. […]
Romance Novel Download // Jun 1, 2007 at 11:04 am
On other side of that list:
1) In most cases I’ll only read a book once
2)Books often cost $10-$15 each. If I can rent it for a couple dollars that might be worth it.
3) Due to lack of storage space I have trashbags full of books in my attic. Occasionally I’ll bring them down and read one again but very seldom
4)trade ins and garage selling your books get you next to nothing. So I pretty much pay $10 to read it once and either store or give it away afterwords.
5)Libraries are dieing in most areas, often only open a couple hours a day and with a small budjet for new books
I see a possibility of this working, if they can keep the cost down.
lori psychic medium // Dec 10, 2007 at 6:31 pm
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