BookMooch is the first point of call I approach when I find a title or author I'm interested in. With my Internet Explorer 7 browser open, I click back and forth between the article I'm reading and BookMooch looking for the title I want.
But having mooched several books from people who never respond to my request, I've become more careful about who I mooch from. So after finding the title, I immediately check the person's profile page to see a) if they are willing to send overseas (most books I want are with U.S. residents) and b) if they have logged in recently.
If the answer to (a) is 'No', obviously I can't mooch the title. Frequently, I'll find people who want you to e-mail them before mooching a book. Well, in that case I send off an e-mail and hope for the best.
If the answer to (b) is 'No', I don't mooch the book. Simple as that. There's nothing more annoying than sitting, staring at your pending page wondering why the heck this person isn't checking their damn e-mail.
So I've become a picky, a choosy moocher. A finicky denizen of this little purveyor of fun on the Internet. After all, if mooching isn't fun, why do it?
When I send a book, I generally write up a card, with a nice picture on it, and insert it in behind the cover before posting it. I've had some very nice little acknowledgements of this largesse. (A card only costs a couple of dollars.) Mooching should be fun!
And it is. In fact, I've received four books named in one of my favourite titles of 2006, Robert Boynton's The New New Journalism. And I've got another four books mentioned in that interesting tome on the way.
But having mooched several books from people who never respond to my request, I've become more careful about who I mooch from. So after finding the title, I immediately check the person's profile page to see a) if they are willing to send overseas (most books I want are with U.S. residents) and b) if they have logged in recently.
If the answer to (a) is 'No', obviously I can't mooch the title. Frequently, I'll find people who want you to e-mail them before mooching a book. Well, in that case I send off an e-mail and hope for the best.
If the answer to (b) is 'No', I don't mooch the book. Simple as that. There's nothing more annoying than sitting, staring at your pending page wondering why the heck this person isn't checking their damn e-mail.
So I've become a picky, a choosy moocher. A finicky denizen of this little purveyor of fun on the Internet. After all, if mooching isn't fun, why do it?
When I send a book, I generally write up a card, with a nice picture on it, and insert it in behind the cover before posting it. I've had some very nice little acknowledgements of this largesse. (A card only costs a couple of dollars.) Mooching should be fun!
And it is. In fact, I've received four books named in one of my favourite titles of 2006, Robert Boynton's The New New Journalism. And I've got another four books mentioned in that interesting tome on the way.
2 comments:
I've had pretty good luck with it thus far.
I've had good luck with it too -- although I'm still waiting for a couple of books to arrive, one of which was posted quite some time ago -- surely it doesn't take two months to cross the Atlantic, even by surface mail.
I like the idea of sending the book with a note/card of some kind. I like to do that too.
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