For the Green Reader

I've been trying to be a bit more mindful these days about my consumption, consumer addiction, etc. and have found a good combination for the avid reader in me. I realized a long time ago that my room full of books was a waste as I will never pick up most of those books and read them again. All those books do is take up space and clutter my life. Before I have taken them to half price books, they will buy them from you and put them in their store for half the list price. Usually you take in a huge box of books and get a few pennies on the dollar, but at least they go to a reader at cheaper than full price. I have also sold some of my books on Amazon, but listing them and taking them to the post office when they sell is kind of a hassle and most of the time, after amazon sucks out their commission, you either make very, very little or it ends up costing you.

So enter my new favorite way to get rid of books that I have already read,  bookins.com.  This is a wonderful website. Pretty much all you do is sign up for an account, enter the isbn of the books you want to send to a reader and wait. They will notify you when a book has sold, you print the postage from their website, package the book, put the label of the front and drop it in the mail. You can also list DVDs and books on CD. You also list the books you want. When someone lists one of the books on your want list, they charge $4.29 to your credit card and the lister ships it to you. All you pay is the shipping. So now when I find a book that I would like to read I add it to my want list and wait.

I have also fallen in love with bookfinder4u.com You sign up and enter a book that you want and it searches all the book sites and finds the lowest price including shipping. If that price is too high and you don't mind waiting for the price to come down, you can add it to your want list and enter the price you are willing to pay. I enter $4.50 as that is what it would cost on bookins. It watches the prices for you and lets you know when one of your books drops below the price you have entered so you can then go and purchase it. Be sure to delete it from bookins or you might end up with two copies.

So, my last resort for books that are brand new and I cannot find at a good price anywhere is I got a kindle for my birthday. I know they are expensive to begin with, but you can get new hardbacks downloaded to it for $9.99. On the kindle you can highlight passages, make annotations, set the font size, clip pages for later and probably a lot more that I have not figured out yet. I also get Time magazine wirelessly downloaded to it weekly, pretty cool.

So my green thoughts on this process are with bookins and bookfinder4u you are sending and receiving books to avid readers at a really good price and no one is printing another copy and wasting paper and all the associated pollution that causes. With the kindle, same thing no printed copy, no paper.

If you are an avid reader and want to save some money and be a bit greener check out the sites I mentioned. Of course the best option is still the Library, but frequently they do not have the titles I wish to read.