ReadItSwapIt.co.uk > Reviews (18)

ReadItSwapIt is, as the name suggests, an Internet book swapping site.

The principle is simple: you list the books you have for sale, which become visible to other members; you can search books listed by other members. Once you find a book you would like, you can request a swap and if the member in question sees anything they want in your list, they indicate which book they want to swap and all that's left to do is packing and posting.

Alternatively, other members can request to swap a book of yours and after perusing their collection, you can either indicate the title you want in return, or decline the swap (there is a number of ready-made reasons provided, from the obvious "I don't want to read any of their books" to "I am not ready to post now, but try soon").

There is a feedback system (and some safeguards against abuse, as limits on the number of swaps that can be requested at the same time depending on the feedback rating).

The site is free to join and the only cost associated with using it is postage of the books you are sending to other swappers. This can vary depending on the actual book, but as for now, most books (up to 500g in weight) will cost £1.85 to post 2nd class, and the thinner ones which can go as Large Letters will usually cost around £1. This is substantially less than "penny books" from Amazon (£2.76 with postage), and although books can be found for around £1.50 or less in many charityshops, swaps come directly to you door and are the selection is much bigger: ReadItSwapIt claims over a quarter of a million books available at the current count, and this is something to be reckoned with.

MY EXPERIENCE

I first joined ReadItSwapIt around four years ago and completed several swaps. The system worked fine, but I found entering books cumbersome and, crucially, the range of titles on offer underwhelming: mostly ditzy romance and airport novels with a sprinkling of classics and cult books. I had not used ReadItSwapIt for the next few years, preferring libraries or Amazon marketplace.

Spurred by a banner ad (!!) I recently logged into my account again - and what a huge change!

I initially listed about 20 books, varying from obscure literature theory to popular paperbacks and had several requests for swaps immediately. The selection of books on offer, although still predominantly pop fiction, was significantly broader and I was able to pick up something I fancied in about half of the cases.

I also performed my own searches for books I have on my "wish list" and found quite a few of them on offer, with people willing to pick something from my own list in return.

This change is undoubtedly due to the fact that the site has grown hugely in the last few years, but also to the increased use people seem to make of the "new books" facility (a list of 100 most recently listed books easily accessible from the ReadItSwapIt menu). The majority of swap requests come in the few hours after you list a new batch of books.

I have a sneaking suspicion that at least some people who request swaps are semi-professional Amazon traders.

I had experienced otherwise difficult to explain surfeits of requests for utterly obscure books that list on Amazon Marketplace with a reasonably high selling price (£5 and more). I know, because a lot of books I listed on ReadItSwapIt I have also listed on Amazon - and have been failing to sell for the last two years or so! I really don't mind exchanging something I have not managed to sell for £10 for the last two or three years for a book I actually might want to read, even if it's a penny book. If the swapper manages to sell it one day - good luck to them. I don't think there is anything wrong with that at all, although it brings me in a roundabout way to my main niggle with ReadItSwapIt.

ALL BOOKS ARE CREATED EQUAL

ReadItSwapIt is based on a wonderfully simple but occasionally simplistic assumption that from the reader's point of view, all books are equal. This doesn't cause any issues when responding to a swap request (you can always decline the offer), but it causes me a little bit of a conundrum when requesting swaps: I have a few "penny books" on my wish-list, books that are available on the Amazon Marketplace for 1p plus £2.75 postage. On the other hand there are a few books on my list of available that are worth more than a throw-away chick lit novel or a toddler picture book. I would be very happy to swap those "more valuable" titles for some but not all of books I have on my wish-list.

There is a way round it, but unless your book list is quite short, it's a cumbersome one: you can make any of your books "inactive" (you can also make your whole list inactive, if for any reason you want to stop swapping for a while) for a period - I suppose I could "switch off" those few more precious titles when requesting popular "penny books", but I never seem to get round to doing that!

I would appreciate being able to have more than one list on the ReadItSwapIt site: you could choose which list you are going to send to the other member when requesting a swap. I think it would increase the number of new, best-selling or more expensive books available.

On the other hand, the site certainly works well enough as it is, and perhaps I am just trying to fix something that's not particularly broken.

[If you are interested in an consumer review of the website, this is pretty much it. The rest of my review contains more detailed comments on the usability of the ReadItSwapIt website and its particular features].

WEBSITE & TECHNICALITIES

The joining process is quick and easy and the whole ReadItSwapIt website is functional and works well.

It's all quite simple, but generally usable and practical.

The main top menu leads to the most frequently used functions and areas, while the left hand vertical menu contains book categories/genres for browsing.

Entering Books

You can enter books using either ISBN numbers or author/title names. I have tried to use ISBN numbers but from my (so far limited to entering around 60 books) experience, ReadItSwapIt system is not actually very good at identifying many books by their ISBN.

Only a few of the books I tried to enter were recognised from their ISBNs, while it was possible to locate pretty much any of them using the title or author.

The search function has some strange peculiarities (it certainly doesn't like more than three words in search terms) and it seems to work best when using actual titles (or three keywords from the title). ReadItSwapIt allows you to search their database or Amazon books, and it seems to me that the best way to locate books that are hard to find on the ReadItSwapIt system is to search Amazon Books using the title, or to go straight to Amazon, locate your book and if it has one, copy the 13 digit ISBN and use that.

You can also enter the details of your book by hand, and then attempt to find a picture and description later.

It's definitely worth locating a cover photo and particularly a description, and if there is no description on Amazon it might be worth providing your own few words: not perhaps for an obscure-30-year-old brochure on self-help for diabetics, but for novels or other titles that have a chance of being picked up.

There is an extensive drop-down list of possible damage, and this seems slightly excessive to me. I think that a "condition grade", as used by Amazon would be sufficient, with guidelines on what constitutes "good" or "acceptable" and a space for a freetext description of damage. Most books would have either no damage, or require manual entry anyway (as the drop down menu doesn't allow for multiple selections).

I also find it astonishing that there is no field for "paperback/hardback" as only books specifically identified by their new (13-digit) ISBN number would have this information on Amazon.

Finding Books

All the comments regarding the search function apply to looking for books for yourself as much as to listing books. A useful feature provided by ReadItSwapIt is a Wish List, which helps to manage your swaps, as well as generating automatic alerts if any books on your wish-list are newly listed on ReadItSwapIt .

Overall, looking for particular books is well covered on ReadItSwapIt and as the search system improves (as I am sure it will) and their database grows, it can only get better.

The situation is rather different when browsing book lists of members that requested one of your titles for a swap. Their list of books appears in a seemingly random order (probably in the order the books were entered) and there is no way to sort it. It's possible to filter books by category/genre or author, but not sort nor select multiple categories. None of it is a problem if the requesting swapper has a couple of dozen, maybe even 60 books on their list, but if their list runs into hundreds (and some do), it becomes an issue.

Extras

ReadItSwapIt website has now a community section, which is essentially a series of forums, some of the devoted to discussion or simple listing of books read, some concerning the mechanics of the site. I have not participated actively in those, but there is a bit of community there if you are into such things.

There is also a "shop" (essentially Amazon ) on ReadItSwapIt, which allows for purchase of books that are not available for swapping and also other Amazon items. This obviously provides the main income of the site (although there are also a few fairly unobtrusive Google Adsense ads).

What Could be Improved?

I would certainly like to see improved ways to view other swapper book lists: simply allowing a sort by author and category would help.

I would also like to see more connectivity between different parts of the system: for example removal of the book from the Wish List if it was successfully swapped, or having books from your wish-list automatically flagged on swappers' lists.

Member profiles tell us ratings and totals swaps requested, accepted and completed, but they could also show percentage accepted, which would help if selecting a swapper to request a book from if more members have it on their list.

I would also like to see information about my interactions with a given swapper: let's say how many swaps (and a list of thus) I requested, accepted and declined/had declined.

It would be also good to see information along the lines of: you have declined their swap before, but since then they added the following books; or some way of flagging particular members/making notes about them (or rather their book lists).

These are all fairly minor things, though. Overall, ReadItSwapIt revisited after four years is an excellent site indeed and very much worth joining and using.