Routine Order

I am a bookswim alpha tester now! I got an invitation and I signed up for a plan today.

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.

The plans for Bookswim are as follows:

1. $23.99 a month for a 3 books at a time plan
2. $26.99 a month for the 5 books at a time plan
3. $29.99 for 7 books at a time
4. $32.99 for 9 books at a time, and
5. $35.99 for 11 books at a time

In addition to the above there is a free membership which you can use to just look over everything - if you decide to rent books, you will have to upgrade to the paid plans.

First impression - the rates are high. $23.99 will buy me a decent book or two a month! Also, whats the point in the 11 books-at-a-time plan? You can finish 11 books all at once - I take at least a day or two to finish a decent sized book. Also, you can’t seem to send back a book as soon as you finish it - for the three books at a time plan, for example, you can send back two books when you are done with them, as you are reading the third book. This won’t be a big problem in the long run, since you can manage to read the 4th book that arrives and send in the third and fourth books and so on - if you know what I mean. Shipping is free both ways. Asking people so send in two books together will save them some shipping dues. Here’s what the plan says:

When you finish 2 books, send them back in return for 2 MORE books. You still have that third book in your hands to read while the others are being shipped, so you’re never without a book!

There is a one month money-back guarantee, in case it doesn’t work out for you, which is reassuring.

The collections seems okay. There are lots of graphic novels and comics as well. There is no Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being), but I could find Umberto Eco and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Of course this was just a very cursory search.

Lets see how this takes off, and then maybe I will pay for the books themselves.

We’ll explode in year 2 as we revolutionize the way America reads.

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?

George says they are white-knucking and late-nighting for a March 2007 release - which is not that far away. I, honestly can’t wait to try it. Then again, I’d probably rent three books and keep them forever, the kind of busy I am right now…

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.

1. Books have a much lesser audience these days
2. There are a lot more books than Movies released every year
3. 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
4. Books might just cost more than DVDs in some case - think hundreds of dollars
5. Books have a limited re-usable life after which they get dog-eared, torn, ripped etc
6. Unethical customers might tear out a page - making the book un-reusable
7. Libraries are still alive and kicking
8. 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.