I was recommended swaptree as a great alternative to paperbackswap, so I decided to give it a try.  I have to say that I don’t think its quite a right fit for me, but I can see why people love it.

It’s a pretty simple concept.  You make a straight trade with another member.  No counting credits, no sending out all your books without anything coming in.  It’s like this:  Members make lists of things they’re offering for trade, and lists of things they want.  Then, when two members make a match (I’ll give you my High School Musical DVD for your hardcover of Breaking Dawn…) they exchange information and mail each other their items.  If you’re not sure what you want for your Kingdom Hearts game, you can browse the list of things people are offering.  As you browse the list, you say “Oh!  The Labrynth on DVD.  I love David Bowie!  I want that!”  See?  Easy.

This system is much better than paperbackswap for people who want to barter a greater variety of items.  It also helps that the things you want are much less likely to be taken, since only people who meet the offerer’s trade requirements may claim it.

The reason this system doesn’t work very well for me is because of my binding snobbery.  For example, I am trying to collect Hardcover versions of my Harry Potter books.  However, even though I only listed hardcover ISBNs in my wishlist, my offers come sometimes without information about the bindings, or saying they’re paperback.  And since the ISBN number doesn’t show up in swap requests, I can’t be sure I’m not just being offered a  paperback of HP and the OOP.  Furthermore, I can’t seem to find any way to contact the offerer to ask.  So, I have let at least two trades go because I don’t want to waste a trade on a book I don’t want.

I have recently traded away a book for a dvd, which was a great trade for me.  The only part that makes me nervous about the trade is that I have no idea if the person I sent my book to actually received it.  You report when an item doesn’t arrive, but as far as I can tell, you can’t mark it mailed or received.

Also, as a side note- if you do use both swaptree and paperbackswap, keep in mind that you will have to keep track of your books on both sites.  If you swap out a book on swaptree, make sure to take it off your pbs list, too- and vice versa.  That can get to be a bit of a pain, but its worth the effort if you have your heart set on shaking up your bookshelf.

All in all, swaptree is definitely a great site for  people looking to swap dvds, cds and games, and for those book traders who aren’t picky like me about which binding they get.  I’ve pulled books from my “i want” list, and am just hoping someone is looking to trade a season of Gilmore Girls for my copy of The Princess Diaries.   And I’m just trying to ignore that nagging feeling that the book I mailed is lost out there in postal service limbo.