Free Books Alert

If you don’t subscribe to Cross Focused Reviews, you may be missing out. We just posted notice about some free book opportunities.

This month, ChristianAudio.com is giving away Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper, the audiobook, for free. Also, Zondervan is hosting a blog tour (and inviting bloggers to sign up for a free commentary) next month timed to coincide with the launch of four new titles to the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament series.

Head on over to Cross Focused Reviews for the details.

Book Swapping: Recycling Old Books, Saving Money

Most of my readers are probably like me. They love books. Bloggers tend to read more books than others, and Christian bloggers tend to have an insatiable craving for theology books new and old. My problem has always been how to afford books. Charles Spurgeon said something like “sell your shirt and buy books”, in his book to ministerial students. No one wants to buy my old shirts, however!

Well, as you can tell, I’ve taken to doing book reviews as a way to get books. But that can be a lot of work. I’ve posted 20 book reviews this year so far, and not everyone is as fanatical about books to do that! A while back I stumbled onto another way to get books inexpensively. It’s called book swapping.

The basic idea is I make my old books available to others. They select a book I’ve listed as available, and then I get notified. I mail the book to them and they let the book swapping website know when they get it. For every book sent and received, I get a credit for a free book.   The postage is paid by the sender of the book, so I only pay for the postage going out on books I send, not the ones I receive. It boils down to getting decent used books for 2-4 dollars each.

Having explained the basic idea, let me recommend a few options for you when it comes to book swapping.

PaperbackSwap.com is my first choice for book swapping. It has by far the widest selection of books with almost 5 million books listed. It also has the best design and is the easiest site to use. You can scroll through available books and easily search by genre or title or author. When you list your first ten books, you get 2 free credits to use for receiving books. Books cost 1 credit each and for every book you send to someone, you get a credit in exchange. Plus if you sign up others to the site, you get additional credits.

BookMooch.com works similarly but you get tenths of a credit for additional things like posting books and sending feedback within the time limit given. The navigation is not as user-friendly but the site works pretty much the same.

I have traded books with both PaperbackSwap and Bookmooch and have received a variety of different conditions on the book. I don’t think it matters which site you use as far as what condition books you’ll receive. I’ve had stellar books and some in poor condition. It can vary but they do recommend books listed to describe their condition. The other big difference between these sites is that PaperbackSwap offers a printable label that works well for sending a book that is not much bigger than a paperback. You can even wrap the book in the paper label and send just like that. Otherwise if the book is larger you can send it in a package and cut out the label and affix it to the packabe. BookMooch doesn’t offer that.

Goodreads.com, is another site whose primary purpose is to post your virtual library. I use it for posting book reviews and books on my “to read” list. It now has recently started bookswapping with a slightly different approach. The person wanting one of your books will pay the postage for it. You just ship them the book on their dime. Once you ship 10 books you get a free credit for any book available for swapping that you’d like. You can of course pay for the shipping on any book you’d like that is available prior to getting that free credit. One catch is GoodReads adds a hanling fee on all books shipped to help them keep up the site. Books will average between $3.50 and $4.50 per Goodreads, which is still a good deal. I haven’t used this feature yet with Goodreads, but it would also be a site to check for good books that may not be listed on the other sites.

I’ve used book swapping to get hard to find books and also to hunt for inexpensive commentaries or other such books. If you are on these sites, let me know as our books may be of mutual interest. I list several Christian books at these sites. My available books at PaperbackSwap are listed here, and at BookMooch are here. On both of these sites you can follow me so you’re aware of new books I post as available for swapping.

If you’d like to check out a bookswapping site, I’d recommend signing up with PaperbackSwap.com. You can use the link below (click on the button) so I’ll get a credit for pointing you their way.

PaperBackSwap.com - Book Club to Swap, Trade & Exchange Books for Free.

New Blogging-for-Books Buttons

I recently created a few blog buttons for the blogging-for-books programs I participate in. Tyndale House and Thomas Nelson (now Book Sneeze), have their own buttons. I made some new ones for NavPress, Reformation Trust, Bethany House and Waterbrook Multnomah. Check out my blog sidebar, and feel free to steal my buttons.

Copy the image and display it on your blog (you may need to set the width to work with your blog better). Then if you haven’t joined any of these programs, click on the links to sign up. When you get accepted feel free to then steal the button and display it on your blog. Do make sure it links to the correct blog review program.

This is a way we can spread the word about blogging for books, and also help out the publishers that make these great programs available to us bloggers. To learn more about blogging for books, check out this post.

Holiday Book Giveaways

If you read my blog, you probably enjoy books. And, if you’re like me, you love the chance to get books for free! I thought I’d mention a few chances to get free books at this time of year.

  • My pal Shaun Tabatt is at it again with his 12 Days of Christmas Book Giveaway. Although today’s giveaway is a software module for BibleWorks 7 or 8 users, the next four days will likely include free book giveaways. Pay close attention to his blog now through Christmas Eve.
  • A blog I just stumbled upon, Sententiae Nil, is offering a free book in honor of its 200th post. You can enter to win a free copy of Biblical Theology: Retrospect and Prospect, edited by Scott Hafemann (IVP) just by subscribing to his blog and commenting on this post. This contest lasts until 12/26. (On a similar note, I just realized that I passed the 700 post mark around here. My 700th post actually offered a free book, too!)
  • Next, Allen Mickle’s blog is giving out a free Crossway title each month in 2010. You’ll want to subscribe to his blog, and read this post for details.
  • Finally, I should mention online bookswapping as a way to get free books. I keep meaning to devote a post to this, and still plan to. But for now, you should check out bookmooch.com and paperbackswap.com for great book-swapping programs. I’ve used both, and like paperbackswap.com’s features the best. In fact if you sign up to paperbackswap.com (for free) using this link, I’ll get credit for referring you to them. Goodreads.com has a new swapping program which I’ll have to check into as well.

Book Review Blogging Made Easy

I’ve written before about how to get books for free by reviewing them on your blog. Since that post, more and more Christian publishers are starting up book review programs for bloggers. Rather than having to email publishers and plead for a book, they are soliciting you to join their book review program. That makes it easier to manage so I’m hoping more of you bloggers out there can take advantage of this. Reading good books is important, and promoting them on your blog keeps your blogging productive and helps publicize a good thing.

So here are the book review programs I’m aware of. If you know of others, please let me know, I’ll add them to the list. I’ll divide them up into those programs that send an actual book, and those that send a PDF copy. Note: click on the Publisher names to visit the book review program and join!

Physical Copies

  1. Thomas Nelson
  2. Bethany House
  3. Tyndale House
  4. NavPress
  5. Waterbrook Multnomah

E-Books (PDF) Copies

  1. Reformation Trust
  2. NetGalley — titles by Broadman & Holman, Moody, Barbour, and others

Personally, I prefer reviewing physical books. The NetGalley thing is primarily self contained. They want you to post reviews on their site. Reformation Trust will send you a hard copy of the book, after you’ve posted your review. For me it is hard to read PDF books, though. So unless I get a free Kindle sometime soon, I’m going to continue my slow progress on pdf book reviewing.

I hope the trend continues with more and more Chrisitan publishers opening up to bloggers. It creates great publicity for them, and exposes their material to many new readers. And it makes blogging a more productive and fulfilling hobby!

Update: WaterBrook Multnomah can be added to the list too.