Something ominous about March, isn’t there? It isn’t anything new: Beware the Ides of March was the warning given to Julius Caesar before his assassination. This year, everyone is worried – about saving money and how best to cope with the economic downturn. Everyone is looking for a way to ease their budgets.
We know that PaperBackSwap helps with this. Members tell us all the time with messages like this one:
“This book club is the best! I can read to my heart’s content and not spend a fortune — and I read a lot! Thank You!”
and this one
“I enjoy this site TREMENDOUSLY… in this economy, buying new books is almost laughable for my family. I appreciate that I can save money, especially by not paying “club fees”, and can help reduce waste by finding my books a new home. THANK YOU!!”
Those are real feedback messages from members, and we get many similar messages from members all the time. It’s clear that swapping here (and at SwapaDVD and SwapaCD) is helping many people cope. Everywhere I go I try to spread the news about PBS – I wear my PaperBackSwap sweatshirt, and I pass out business cards (printable and personalizable from the Spread the Word page on the site).
We were so excited when SwapaDVD was on The Today Show! And then PBS was in O (Oprah) Magazine and People Magazine last month! We have had a lot of new members sign up from these mentions, and we got to thinking. There must be a lot of people out there who would love membership, but who just don’t know about us. It seems that every day I meet someone (or more than one person) who is so excited to hear about the swapping concept! But I am just one guy – I can’t tell everyone. But the TV news and magazine items get to a lot of people. So I thought it would be a great idea to ask all of you to send us the name of a reporter in your town or city who might be interested in doing a story on our clubs. Then we can help all kinds of people across the country to find out about this way to save money and get great entertainment for nothing more than the cost of postage.
You can send an email to us at RichardPickering@paperbackswap.com. Tell us your town/city and state, and the TV/radio channel/newspaper and the reporter’s name, and we’ll take it from there! You are also welcome to submit the story idea yourself directly to the reporter, of course. Often times when I have spoken to reporters, they will ask me if I can find a local member for an interview. Who knows, you could end up being quoted or broadcast on the local news (if you agreed to that). And the great thing is – the more members we have, the more books for everyone to share.
Remember, bad times don’t last forever! We will get through this together.
Best from
Richard Pickering and
the PaperBackSwap Team
