Used text books are good for the planet, right? Well that statement seems fairly easy to defend, but when you get down to the hard facts, it really becomes an interesting topic. When proving this hypothesis, the first question I wanted to answer was, “How many books come from one tree?”. I soon realized this was not an easy question to answer, because books and trees come in all different shapes and sizes. Determined not to give up on my quest for the tree book ratio, I dug deeper searching some type of quantitative data to calculate how many averaged sized books come from the average sized tree. Eventually I stumbled across some interesting information, it turns out that most trees are not used for paper. In fact, only the unwanted parts are sent to make paper. The majority of paper is made from recycled materials.

So does the buying and selling of used books do much good for our tall green friends after all? Perhaps not as much as I had originally anticipated, but I still contend that used books are good for the planet, and here’s why. Do you remember the old saying “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”? Well when paper is recycled to create new paper, it goes through a process that requires a lot of energy, and resources including the use of some dangerous chemicals. Not to mention all of the energy and resources that are used to print a copy of a new book that could have been bought “USED” instead. So even if new books are made from recycled paper far more energy and resources are expended in creating them if we simply reused the books we have now. Maybe that is why they put reuse before recycle.

So perhaps buying and selling books on-line isn’t going to make you Captain Planet, but it does make a lot of sense. What makes even more sense is the economic impact buying and selling used books has. In a national, and even global time of economic uncertainty buying and selling used books does a lot more good than you might think. Selling your books on-line, especially text books, provides a low-cost alternative for students to buy the books they need for school. During a time of economic downturn many individuals lose their jobs, and in an effort to make themselves marketable they return to school to learn new skills, which will allow them to gain new employment. Very often these students cannot afford to pay full price for their books. Thus, by selling your books on-line, you are not only earning extra income for yourself, while helping the environment, you’re making it easier for someone out there to get an education, which is definitely good for the planet.

So go ahead and round up all those old books and use http://bookscouter.com to find the best places to sell them. You’ll earn some money and help the planet!

I’m about to release the iPhone app and realized that I kindof need a logo to use as the icon. I’ve started a logo design contest at 99designs.com

View the designs here

If you are creative, feel free to submit a design. Otherwise, let me know if one of the logos really stands out to you.

Thanks,
Brandon Checketts
BookScouter.com

The following sites were the most popular sites last month, according to the number of visitors sent from BookScouter

1. Powell’s Books
2. Textbooksrus.com
3. BookJingle.com
4. Cash4Books
5. CKY Books
6. Book Byte
7. FirstClassBooks.com
8. SellBackYourBook.com
9. Textbooks.com
10. Blue Rocket Books

I’ve just finished adding Blue Rocket Books to the site. Their pricing should be showing up now, so please leave feedback for them as you have a chance to try their service. From what I’ve seen, it looks like they might purchase more fiction and other non-textbooks than many other sites.

Thank you to those who recently let me know about BookJingle. I have just finished adding it to the site and pricing should be showing up now.

I’ve noticed that a common complaint is for people to ship new books to a buyer only to have them graded as used. I believe that some of this is due to people packing books poorly and having them damaged in transit.

Can anybody share some hints for properly packing books for shipment? I’ve pointed people to this link on ebay before, but it seems like a bit of overkill. I’m hoping to compile some simple, practical steps that people can use to ensure that their books aren’t damaged in transit.

I imagine their might be some different things to consider when mailing individual books versus sending a box of books at a time.

Please post comments here, or email me your tips. I’m hoping to add a new page or two to the site with your input.

I have had a ‘hidden’ page available for a while where users can enter multiple ISBNs and look up approximate pricing for all of the books on one screen. That page is available at http://bookscouter.com/multi.php and available for anybody to use.

It works similarly to the Paperback Swap Lookup that I posted about recently. The pricing displayed is from the last time the book was looked up on the site, and it provides a link for you to refresh with the current prices.

I’m posting this here in hopes of gathering some feedback about how it works, and how you think it might be done better. As usual, feel free to comment here, or send me a message if you have any comments or suggestions.

PaperbackSwap.com is a great site for swapping books with other people. The intention is to make your books available to people, and you can ask for books from anybody else on the site. This works out pretty well and the service has grown a lot.

I have noticed that people occasionally post textbooks and other books that have a decent value. My guess is that the members don’t know that their books are worth anything, so they are willing to give them away in exchange for books that sell for a penny.

I have just created a page at http://bookscouter.com/pbs.php where a user can enter their PaperbackSwap MemberID and use their API to retrieve a list of their books. It then displays the approximate value of each book and provides links to look up the value of each book on BookScouter.

The page is pretty basic now, but if there seems to be any interest in it, I can spruce it up a bit. Please post comments here or Contact Me if you have any suggestions or comments.