We’re all feeling a little tense these days what with the economy, eh?   Time for…
…a PaperBackSwap Members’ Survival Guide!

• Multiple-book swaps save postage – a LOT of postage.
  Requestors should be sure to click Order More from Member to check the bookshelf of the sender you are ordering from to see if there are other books you’d like.  If everyone does this, everyone saves!  Senders who use printable postage shouldn’t print the wrapper to send a book right away – wait until you are ready to wrap, to be sure the requestor isn’t in the process of browsing your bookshelf for more books.   And don’t forget Box-O-Books!  It’s a small investment (8 dollars for a year’s subscription) and it pays for itself in postage savings after just your first few swaps.
• There’s gold in them thar backpacks!
  The schoolbooks you paid so dearly for that will bring you peanuts at the Used Book Store can each earn a credit to get another book!  So get your kids’ upcoming reading lists and plan ahead.  Remember that textbooks (unlike other books posted for swapping at PBS) may have highlighting/writing/underlining in them – BUT you do have to get consent from the requestor about the book condition before sending it, as described in the Book Condition Guidelines. Encourage your kids to take good care of their books so there’s a lot of life (and reads) left in them!
• Triple your swapping power!

Did you know that you can transfer credits between your accounts at PBS, SwapaDVD and SwapaCD ? Remember those DVDs your child wanted to watch every day until…she didn’t? That emo CD your nephew knew you would love…but you didn’t?  Join SwapaDVD.com and SwapaCD.com and post them for swapping!  Earn DVD and CD credits and bring ’em back to your account on PBS (1:1 transfer from SwapaCD, 2:3 transfer from SwapaDVD) on PBS.  Read more about how to do this.

• That’s Entertainment!
  We bet one of the biggest bills you pay each month is…for TV.  Consider getting rid of TV service altogether. Yes, stop gasping, we’re serious.  What you can do without TV:  Read, talk, play games, take an after-dinner walk; Listen to online radio while you knit a sweater;  Learn to cook, learn to tango, learn to speak Chinese (most podcasts are FREE).  For your video fix, remember that: your local library has DVDs to borrow for FREE; SwapaDVD allows you to swap the unwatched DVDs you own for new ones, and then swap those for others; many TV shows are legally available online (you have to wait a few hours or a day for them to be uploaded, but many networks have websites and stream their TV series there FREE);  you can be “fashionably late” to watch premium-channel series–they’ll come out on DVD so you can get them from your library or SwapaDVD for FREE.

• Reduce your carbon footprint – as precious these days as the carbon in a diamond!
  There are so many ways to do this: Walk to the post office if it’s close enough (and you don’t have too many books to carry); Combine and plan your errands so that you drive from one to the other (in a loop if possible, ending back at home); Save gasoline by mailing from home using PBS Printable Postage; If you don’t use printed postage, designate one day per week as your go-to-PO day and make sure you accept every request with a mailby date that falls on or after that day of the week; run the heat-producing dishwasher/clothes dryer in the evening during summer and during the day during winter.

Times are tough. Hang in there, everyone–we know things will bounce back.  In good times or bad, swapping saves!
Richard and
The PaperBackSwap Team