Web log analysis
May 14, 2008
I’ve posted various metrics about BookMooch before, using numbers from the BookMooch Statistics page. Today, I decided to take all the monthly web logs, combine them into a big excel file, and see what that looks like.
My logs start November 1st, 2007: before then I wasn’t saving the web site log data. On most of these charts, I’ve added a 14-day trend-line, to quiet the noisy day-to-day fluctuations.
This chart of daily unique visitors (ie, individual people) shows us at around 18,000 daily visitors, which is 48% more than 6 months ago.
This chart of daily web page hits shows a 45% growth in the past 6 months, with 300,000 page hits per day currently.
Both of these charts are understandable when you look at our BookMooch members listing books to give chart, which also shows a 50% growth in the past 6 months.
This chart shows when people visit BookMooch. Predictably, it’s a bell curve, with the bulk between 8am and 8pm (Pacific Time). I made a similar chart for day-of-the-week, but I’m not putting it on the blog, because it showed that usage is almost identical for each day, except that Wednesday was about 20% less busy.
This chart shows how long people stay on the BookMooch web site. Most interesting to me was how many people stay a fairly long time, with 45% of visitors staying more than 15 minutes. That is quite unusual. Note that I removed from this chart people who stay less than 30 seconds, since they obviously didn’t find BM interesting, and left right away — I was interested in seeing how long everyone who actually uses the site stays.
No surprise here, 50% of BM visitors use Internet Explorer, and 37% use Firefox.
When I get started making charts, I have trouble stopping!
Here are two more, and then — really! — I’ll get back to work.
I’ve always wondered what our quarterly growth looks like, since that’s how public companies report their numbers.
This chart shows how much more mooching occurs each quarter vs the previous quarter. Yes, I know that we started at high growth rates (that’s why the curve goes downwards from right to left) as that’s always the case with a new company, since you’re starting out with very small numbers, so it’s easy to have growth.
For the past 9 months, we’ve stabilized at around a 27% quarterly growth in mooching of books:
Interestingly, the growth in active members (people who have books listed for giving) is quite a bit lower than the growth in mooching. For the past 11 months, we’ve been around a 12% quarterly growth rate in active members. This shows that BookMooch is become “more useful”, in the sense that the people who are on the site are mooching more and more, at a much higher growth rate than the acquisition of new members:
Article on BookMooch in MoleskineCity
May 13, 2008
A nice article on BookMooch today at MoleskineCity.
Better World Books
May 7, 2008
On monday I had dinner with Xavier Helgesen, one of the cofounders of Better World Books. He lives in San Francisco but was coming through London, so we ended up meeting in London rather than our California homes.
What Better World Books does is truly amazing, and deserves all the success it has had, which is considerable, and I think BookMooch is going to work with them in the future.
What they do is work with charities that run book drives, collecting all the books that remain unsold by the charity at the end of the book drive. They then find the best homes they can for those remaining books, either by selling the books (and raising money for the charity or through other charitable donations).
What this concretely means is that they list the books on eBay and Amazon and on their own website, and pay back a significant percentage of any money that comes in from those sales back to the charity. In this way, they greatly increase the amount of money a charity can receive from a book drive, and they also prevents the waste of large numbers of books. I remember reading about how a local hospital sent all the unsold books from their book drive to the trash dump, and how upset I was to learn that.
Of the books that are not sold, if it is a textbook, then it goes to Books for Africa, where extremely current textbooks are really in demand and in short supply.
They also have deals with volume used book purchasers, who will buy the remaining fiction books by the pound. That’s much better then throwing the books away, and the charity of course gets their percentage. Only in the last resort are are the books sent to be recycled.
Their numbers are extremely impressive and posted publicly on their website.
* Collected over 11.4 million books through active book drives at over 1,600 colleges and universities and collections from over 900 libraries
* Raised over $2.8 million for over 80 literacy and education non-profit organizations,
* Raised more than $1.7 million for libraries and thrift stores nationwide
* Directly sent more than 1 million books to Books for Africa, the National Center for Family Literacy, and Feed the Children
* Contributed more than $1 million to college service clubs who have run book drives
And that’s just a subset of what their web page lists.
BookMooch & Better World Books Partnership ideas
Xavier And I got along famously, and came up with several partnership ideas between Better World Books and BookMooch. I’d love to get some feedback on them!
Here is what we are thinking of doing:
* Giving to moochers: Better World Books would become a BookMooch member, and list books (those they cannot sell) for mooching. This helps increase the catalog of books on BookMooch. Eventually they would list almost their entire catalog of 1 million titles! Less books going to the dump, and a better selection for mooching. Initially, they’d start out small, to make sure that moochers are happy with the experience, but since their goal is to find a home for each book they receive, BookMooch is perfect for them.
* Mooching books: By earning these mooch points honestly, they also earn the right to mooch books that they can sell (or send the book to a charity they work with that really needs it). A healthy percentage of those proceeds go to charity. Since they are extremely successful at finding buyers for very obscure books, I think this will help moochers give away books that we don’t yet have an audience for, while both supporting both a business I like and raising money for charities.
* Bulk receiving of books: if you have boxes of books and do not want to bother entering them into BookMooch, Better World Books will accept whatever books you postal mail to them in whatever quantity you want, and pay you in book mooch points. What I suggested is some sort of automated pay scale like this: a) if the book title has been mooched in the past month, then pay a one mooch point, b) if the book title has been mooched in the past six months, then pay one half a much point, otherwise pay .1 mooch points. A lot of people on the forums, and in person to me, have asked if there was a way BookMooch could take a bulk shipment of books off their hands. This would of course be voluntary, and only for people who don’t want to be bothered listing books in BookMooch and sending them one at a time.
Thoughts?
There are a lot of comments on this blog entry, and this morning I was quite pleased to find that Xavier has replied directly on the forum. Since it’s his company being talked about, I’m also reproducing his reply here in the blog body itself, so it gets extra attention:
| From: Xavier Helgesen
Hi all- Thanks for all the feedback. As John mentioned, we had a great discussion, and I’m happy to be involved. We’re definitely looking forward to getting more involved with the BookMooch community and finding ways to add value. The core of our model is creating value for all stakeholders: customers, non-profits, partners, employees and anyone else we work with. I’ll try to address as any questions raised as I can - please let me know if I missed anything. Also, I encourage people to contact me personally. There seems to be a lot of conjecture about what Better World Books is and isn’t online. I’m always happy to have a chat about the company, as I feel very strongly about the positive impact we make, and I don’t see us as any threat to small booksellers. Even if we grew by a factor of 10, we’d be a very, very small part of the book market. My email is pretty easy to guess: xavier at {company URL} Cam: THANK YOU! Please keep checking with us first for affordable used books - if you email me, I’ll send you the friends & family discount code. Any others reading the comments are welcome to request this as well. Jon & Ashleigh: Thanks for your posts - that is exactly how I think is the best way for things to work. We’ll act as a responsible member of the community, just like any other. Regarding shipping books to UK & Canada: This is something that we’re looking strongly at. We’re going to roll the program out first in the USA, and proceed from there. There may be ways we can cover part/all of the cost of shipping to us, but we would have to do it based on the value of the books sent. There are a great deal of books in the world that are very hard to resell and are not of much use to our literacy partners. Advanced Readers Copies: Those are tough for us, as the publishers really push hard on reselling them, and they are not the final versions of the books. So generally we have to politely decline those books. Regarding Emily Thayer’s Points: We are a for-profit social venture, and we make no bones about it. We’re very clear about this on our website. We are not a publicly traded company however - we are independent, and owned primarily by founders and employees. We pride ourselves on providing health insurance for all employees after 90 days (which is VERY expensive for a small company like ours) and paying fair wages. We also would love to work with you on a local level - we offer warehouse pickup of books on BetterWorld.com, and we’re happy to work out bulk sales discounts and other arrangements to support our local booksellers. Just follow the bulk sales link on the site. I’m sure if you stopped by and met us, you’d see that we’re nice people, and we’re certainly not a “big business” of the ilk of Wal-Mart. We are very proud to be part of the Mishawaka community and try to engage any way we can. We encourage our employees to volunteer, and have partnerships including with the Center for the Homeless and the Robinson Community Learning Center. We have also created over 100 jobs in the community, ranging from picking orders to writing software. Regarding our participation: As I mentioned before, our participation in BookMooch only makes sense to the degree that we add value to the community. If some members want books that there is not enough demand for on our sales channels, and there are other books we can receive in return that our customers do want, that seems to be a win-win to me. As the system is very cleverly designed, we’ll only be able to receive books to the extent that we provide books that members want. I’m not sure yet whether our inventory will be a good match, but I suspect that it will. Also, the program for people to send books in will not be for everyone. We’ll have to see if it is useful, and adjust it if it is not. I can’t see how people could object to it, as it is an optional program and certainly it doesn’t hurt if it exists. Regarding Mark William’s post: Mark, you rightly mention that Books For Africa is a top-notch publicly accountable charity. The fact that our programs are both the largest source of funding and University-level books for Books For Africa ought to tell you something. We are fully transparent with our non-profit partners, and you can feel free to independently verify this and contact them. I highly encourage anyone who wants to front the postage or lives in the Minneapolis area to donate books direct to Books For Africa. I serve on the board of the organization and it has been an exceptional privilege. You do have a few facts mixed up - we sell almost all of our books on consignment for non-profits and libraries, and we pay a percentage of gross, not net. The commission varies, since we cover all costs associated with the book collections. Since we are a nationwide program, there are many costs associated with book collection and inbound shipping that are always going to be higher than a local operation. The strength of our program is really the scale - most local booksellers cannot take on 20,000 books at once and sell them effectively. They would typically have to “cherry pick” the best books and recycle the rest. Because of our scale, we are able to handle these kind of volumes, and that is a reason a lot of libraries have chosen to work with us. Finally, I can assure you that our profits are not in the 10’s of millions. As I’ve mentioned in a blog comment on another site (where they wanted to see the cars and houses of the founders), I rent and don’t own a car. We have relatively small margins after the amount we share with our literacy partners, and reinvest a great deal in our people, our software, and spreading the word about Better World Books. Sincerely, |
John writes: I found the comment below to be really fascinating, so I’m reproducing it in the body of this blog as well:
| As a BookMooch charity and a non-profit partner of Better World Books, the Prison Book Program has a unique perspective on this issue.
Better World Books has been selling books we cannot use since 2004 and we have found them to be a great partner. To date they have raised over $25,000 for us which accounts for over 33% of our budget and has funded shipments to more than 8000 prisoners. We get 30% of the revenues for the books they sell on our behalf. Yes, that is relatively small, but when you consider that they pay for everything from the shipping of our books to their warehouse to the handling of the purchases, it is more than fair. We have tried selling books on our own through Amazon, through local booksellers and by running our own book sales. All proved to be far too much effort for way too little gain. BWB brings economy of scale to non-profit book selling in the same way Amazon brings it to book-selling in general. Many may not consider that a good thing, but we most certainly do. The person that manages our relationship with BWB works in the publishing industry. She has met the CEO and founders and visited their facility in South Bend, Indiana. She found them to be genuinely dedicated to funding literacy efforts and was quite impressed with their operation. They are also a recent recipient of Fast Company Magazine’s social entrepreneur award. I worked for a non-profit that received this award several years in a row. I can say that Fast Company does not award this honor lightly. The recipients are changing the world in powerful ways and are doing it honestly and efficiently. BookMooch has also been a boon to us in the ~6 months we have been an official charity. We have mooched over 350 books and nearly all of these are so in-demand that they are sent to a prisoner within a week of receiving them. Because of BookMooch we have been able to dramatically improve the quality of reading material we send out. We have mooched dictionaries (which prisoners use to teach themselves to read), almanacs, self-help and religious materials of all kinds, business books and many more. When an inmate learns to read or start a business or gets his GED or improves his mental state, he is far more likely to have a successful life on the outside – and because of legions of generous BookMoochers we are able to provide many more of these hard-to-find titles than we have in the past. Unfortunately, we (and the other prison book charities) regularly clean out BM’s inventory of these books. Having more available would be fantastic! BWB and BookMooch joining forces would make more of these titles available to everyone. We pre-screen the books we send to BWB to weed out the un-saleable ones – so I am very familiar with the books they deem un-saleable and could become available on BookMooch. While some are the same MMPs that likely are sitting in everyone’s inventories for months, a great number of them are non-fiction titles that would go in minutes on BookMooch. BWB has increased the quantity of books we send out. BookMooch has improved the quality. Working together, they may be able to do more of both. It sounds like there are many details to be thought out and considered before going forward with this plan, but I do hope that two of our favorite partners will find a way to work together. They would make a powerful team that would benefit the entire community. Marlene Cook |
Reuse your packaging
April 29, 2008
BookMooch volunteer admin Dave came up with a good idea: re-using used mailing packages, and circulating these used packages by using BookMooch itself.
Specifically, he suggested that bundles of a dozen or half-dozen mailing envelopes could be made available by people who have excess packaging, and mooched by people who need them.
Even better, if you’re mooching a book from Dave, or any other user with used packaging, you should also mooch some used mailing packages, so they can include them in his mailing to you, and there’s no extra mailing cost for the sender.
You can find the mooch packages by searching for the word “moochpackages” like so:
if you have your own packages to give away, click on the “dozen” or “half-dozen” link, and then click the “give your copy” link:
Facebook Widget for BookMooch
April 29, 2008
A brand new Facebook widget for BookMooch has been written, and it has some really nice features.
To add the new BookMooch widget to your page, go to this url:
http://facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=9914231158
You should see a screen like this below, from which you can click the “add application” button on the top right of the page. You might need to log into Facebook first before you see this page.
you’ll then have to configure the widget to do what you want. My preference is to show 7 recent book covers I’ve wishlisted, mooched or am giving away, because 7 covers is what fits on one line in Facebook. I’ve some problems with the “Random covers” choice today (but it works for Kevan in the UK), so there if that doesn’t work for you, try “recent covers” instead. Be sure to give your BookMooch user name (the one you use to log in with). No password is necessary, since this is publicly viewable information on the BookMooch site anyway.
Your Facebook page will now list information about your BookMooch activities:
Even cooler, books you mooch or give away show up on your minifeed, so that your friends can see what books you’re offering, and what you’re planning on reading:
Kevan Davis, a moocher in the UK, wrote this app. It’s still in beta, and might have some problems still. We’re looking for feedback and ideas. One idea I had, that Kevan thinks is silly (grin) is to show books that I recently gave away. Kevan thinks that’s a “tease” (see what you missed out on, ha ha) and I think it’s interesting to see what my friends are getting rid of. Kevan’s probably right (feature overkill) but I’d love feedback for other features, or ways this could work differently.
Tell your Facebook friends about the BookMooch widget
The easiest way is to share the widget is to click on the “bookmooch” link on your own profile page:
and then on the top right of the settings page, click “share”
Or you can go to this url:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=9914231158#
click on the “share” button on the right column:
A popup appears that lets you post a message to your wall:
here it is on my wall. Notice how the wall has a “share” button, which makes it *much* easier.
note that you can also send email messages to your friends about the Facebook widget.
There is a BookMooch group of Facebook, which you can join at this URL:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2209177001
Eco-mooching
April 19, 2008
In response to my blog entry about “publishers giving BM some green love” a discussion sprang up in the comments of that blog entry, about how “green” book-trading-by-mail is.
I’m definitely sympathetic to the concerns. However, books are a physical product, and as such have an energy, resource, waste and pollution footprint.
If we like books (and I do) and we want to be “green” I think our goals should be:
- to have fewer copies of books printed
- to have those copies be re-read as much as possible
- and to be as efficient as possible in moving the books from reader to reader.
As such, some long term goals I have for BookMooch, which I want to mention now, are:
- make book trading so effective that publishers can print fewer copies of a book, and yet reach a larger audience. (to accomplish this, I have to find a way for publishers to profit from BM)
- promote “meet & mooch” get-togethers, where people regularly meet and bring books the others attending indicated an interest in, so that books can be felt, browsed, discussed and mooched in person.
- provide a “mooch shelf” where books being traded can be dropped off and picked up at your leisure (and safely) in a place you’re already driving by. These could be at libraries, schools and cafes.
- encourage multi-mooching, i.e. getting several books from one person. This lowers postal costs and the carbon footprint per book.
- encourage use of bookmooch among real-world friends who live near each other. This will be through a “friends only inventory” feature I’m planning, where you can list books that only your friends can see and mooch, as well as a friends-only discussion group.
I’m sure more good ideas will emerge over time. These are all things I want to focus on over the next year, as they help improve BookMooch overall by:
- lowering the postage cost for bookmooch members
- lowering the cost of being a book publisher
- foster communication, community and friendship among book readers
- integrate book reading into existing real-world structures (cafes, libraries, schools, etc…)
- increase the rate at which unwanted books find a new, happy home
A few days ago, my friend Cory Ondrejka suggested something along these lines, namely promoting local mooching more, and the use of Starbucks as a meeting place where two local moochers could exchange the book face to face. There are a lot of pros to that idea (no postage cost, drinking more coffee, meeting people) but it’s also complicated (which Starbucks? There are so many! And when should we meet?). Of course, this wouldn’t be just Starbucks, but any open meeting place (such as an indie bookstore or cafe). Another angle is to use the “local book events” feature at LibraryThing as a meeting-place. I’m not sure this idea will work yet at BookMooch, because moochers don’t yet frequently live near each other, but it might work for certainly major cities.
Kittens for BookMooch
April 17, 2008
I received this wonderful postcard in the mail today from someone a fellow moocher. I *think* it might be a vintage photograph, it certainly looks old. I had to share, this is so sweet…
ps: that’s not my real postal address, I tinkered with it in Photoshop (though plenty of you who’ve received a book or cards from me know my real address)
Publishers give BM some green love
April 15, 2008
In partnership with Eco-libris (http://www.ecolibris.net), and in celebration of Earth Day, several book publishers are donating copies of new books to BookMooch. They want to do something “green” as well as to give book trading a try. Also, every book sent out will have an Eco-Libris sticker on it, so each book represents on newly planted tree.
Every day from now until Earth Day, I will publicize a new green-related book. The publishers are sending the copies themselves to the people who mooch them, so they really are making a gift. Eco-libris is coordinating the whole thing, so you’ll be mooching from them.
Let’s thank the publishers for their generosity. I have a few suggestions:
1) mooch the book, read it, and then pass it on to someone else by re-listing it on BookMooch. This is about reuse, and the power of book trading to lessen the number of trees felled to reach an audience.
2) leave your comments, reviews, ie on the BookMooch page for each book, but also on each book’s amazon page. That’ll help the publisher sell more copies, and help them see that helping book trading can help their goals too
3) blog, blog, blog about the book, the publisher’s gift, and give your encouragement of this
4) mention book trading to your friends both in person, and in the online forums you participate in
5) help out Eco-libris for coordinating this whole thing. Read about them and their tree-planting efforts and consider buying some planted-tree-stickers from them.
Tuesday’s (Earth day) book is “Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World “, by Diane MacEachern.
This is the last book in this weeklong promotion. Thanks for mooching, and when you receive one of these books, be sure to re-list it once you’ve finished reading it. Lots of people want to read them!
Direct links:
Please leave comments on the Amazon info page for this book once you read the book. You can also buy a copy from Amazon, if you’d rather not pass the book onto someone else after mooching it.
Here is a short description of the book:
| “Protecting our environment is one of the biggest issues facing our planet today. But how do we solve a problem that can seem overwhelming-even hopeless? As Diane MacEachern argues in Big Green Purse, the best way to fight the industries that pollute the planet, thereby changing the marketplace forever, is to mobilize the most powerful consumer force in the world-women.
MacEachern’s message is simple but revolutionary. If women harness the “power of their purse” and intentionally shift their spending money to commodities that have the greatest environmental benefit, they can create a cleaner, greener world. Spirited and informative, this book: - targets twenty commodities-cars, cosmetics, coffee, food, paper products, appliances, cleansers, and more-where women’s dollars can make a dramatic difference; Whether readers want to start with small changes or are ready to devote the majority of their budget to green products, MacEachern offers concrete and immediate ways that women can take action and make a difference. Empowering and enlightening, Big Green Purse will become the “green shopping bible” for women everywhere who are asking, “What can I do?” “ |
Monday’s book is “The Green Eaters - A Dream Comes True”, by Jennifer Murphy (Author), Mary Deaton (Illustrator).
The publisher has made 5 copies available. Those will go quickly, so please put this book on your wishlist, so you can get it after someone else is done with it:
Direct links:
Please leave comments on the Amazon info page for this book once you read the book. You can also buy a copy from Amazon, if you’d rather not pass the book onto someone else after mooching it.
Here is a short description of the book:
| “A fun and heart warming picture book for babies and young children that tells the story of five farm animal friends who dream of a better life outside of Dreary Day factory farm. They dream of a better future and one day they are moved to an organic farm. They are amazed and delighted by what they find at The Green Eaters Farm. They realize this new home is where their dream comes true! A fun and friendly way to introduce the importance of organic living to children!.” |
Sunday’s book is “Chance Murphy and the Battle of Morganville”, by Josh P. McClary.
The publisher has made 5 copies available. Those will go quickly, so please put this book on your wishlist, so you can get it after someone else is done with it:
Direct links:
Please leave comments on the Amazon info page for this book once you read the book. You can also buy a copy from Amazon, if you’d rather not pass the book onto someone else after mooching it.
Here is a short description of the book:
| “Chance Murphy, a 13-year-old living in Morganville, Indiana during the mid 1980s, is full of contradictions. He wants to be a man, but he has the needs of a child; he loves his mentally handicapped sister, but he also resents her and wishes she weren’t such an easy target for the other kids; he is witty, but he embarrasses easily, especially when it comes to dealing with his emerging sexual feelings. Though Chance has a big heart, he has a dark side that surfaces in dreams of nuclear obliteration and manifests into paranoia and an “enemies list”—at the top of which is his archenemy, Otto Manheim, the neighborhood kid. While the tension between the two creates many comical moments, the conflict escalates and finally reaches a boiling point at the bloody battle of Morganville.” |
Saturday’s book is “Growing Toward Balance: Achievable Ideas for Bringing Harmony to Your Mind, Body, and Spirit”, by Mary Kearns.
The publisher has made 5 copies available. Those will go quickly, so please put this book on your wishlist, so you can get it after someone else is done with it:
Direct links:
Please leave comments on the Amazon info page for this book once you read the book. You can also buy a copy from Amazon, if you’d rather not pass the book onto someone else after mooching it.
Here is a short description of the book:
| “To live your best, it’s important to strive for wellness and balance in every aspect of your life by coordinating your conscious mind with your body and spirit. Drawing from her experience as a workshop facilitator, researcher, and life coach, author Mary Kearns, PhD, brings a reader-friendly approach to a variety of topics supporting body-mind-spirit wellness.
Growing Toward Balance promotes a holistic method of self-improvement, adopting the notion that who we are, how we feel, and what we accomplish are all intricately entwined. Combining coaching-style self-questioning, teachings from classic spiritual texts, and research-based suggestions for practical ways to implement positive change, this guide will help you take tangible steps to improve your well-being on every level. Rather than just offering advice, Growing Toward Balance provides more than eighty easy steps you can take to reach your own personal best, and offers exercises and activities to aid you in achieving greater balance and wellness. Kearns invites you to engage in a process of thinking about your mental, physical, and spiritual health and gives you simple, practical tools to achieve harmony in your life.” |
Friday’s book is “Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify and Energize Your Life, Your Home and Your Planet”, by Norma Lehmeier-Hartie.
The publisher has made 5 copies available. Those will go quickly, so please put this book on your wishlist, so you can get it after someone else is done with it:
Direct links:
Please leave comments on the Amazon info page for this book once you read the book. You can also buy a copy from Amazon, if you’d rather not pass the book onto someone else after mooching it.
Here is a short description of the book:
| Shows the reader how to create a beautiful, non-toxic and natural home and workspace; a sanctuary that will support, invigorate and nourish them to enable the reader to flourish in all aspects of their lives–while being kind to the environment. There are hundreds of resources and information providing eco-friendly and safe construction and building materials and household goods. Clearly written, cleanly organized, and enthusiastically presented, this is an unusual and eclectic addition to anyone’ss home improvement library. Perfect blend of the practical and the magical to help us recapture the simplicity that modern society has stolen away.” |
Thursday has two books is “A Hot Planet Needs Cool Kids (Understanding Climate Change and What You Can Do About It)”, by Julie Hall, and “Here, There, and Everywhere” by Mira Tweti.
The publisher has made 5 copies available of each. Those will go quickly, so please put this book on your wishlist, so you can get it after someone else is done with it:
Direct links for “A Hot Planet…”
and for “Here, There, and Everywhere”
Please leave comments on the Amazon info page for this book (Hot Planet and Here, There, and Everywhere) once you read the book. You can also buy a copy from Amazon, if you’d rather not pass the book onto someone else after mooching it.
Here is a short description of “Mira Tweti : Here, There, and Everywhere”:
| Mira Tweti and Lisa Brady have produced a masterpiece for children, combining factual information and animal welfare issues with storytelling and fabulous ilustrations. Here, There and Everywhere takes us on a fascinating journey. Parents and teachers will learn as much as children and be just as enchanted.
I highly recommend this book as a gift, as a necessary addition to libraries, and in schools and homes. Please share your copy with as many friends as you can, and encourage them to buy their own! –Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE - Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace.” |
and here is a short description of “Mira Tweti : Here, There, and Everywhere”:
| Kids, parents, and teachers will find the very latest information about the causes and effects of climate change, how people are working to reduce it, and ways kids and their families and schools can join the fight. A Hot Planet Needs Cool Kids teaches and inspires through clear and accessible writing, engaging illustrations, hands-on activities, cool and hot facts, eco-hero features, and a hopeful and empowering message to get kids involved in confronting global warming and developing their best selves through such work.
A Hot Planet Needs Cool Kids is suitable for home and classroom use. It meets national science and social studies curriculum standards. Additional teacher resources are available. “ |
Wednesday’s book is “The Ovum Facto”, by Marvin L. Zimmerman.
The publisher has made 5 copies available. Those will go quickly, so please put this book on your wishlist, so you can get it after someone else is done with it:
Direct links:
Please leave comments on the Amazon info page for this book once you read the book. You can also buy a copy from Amazon, if you’d rather not pass the book onto someone else after mooching it.
Here is a short description of the book:
| David Rose, a young investment banker from New York, becomes swept up in a whirlwind of international espionage, assassination, and sabotage. David finds himself on a journey that takes him to the unexplored depths of the Amazon in order to fulfill two ancient prophecies for saving mankind and at the same time to realize his own destiny. “ |
Tuesday’s book is When “Santa Turned Green”, by Victoria Perla (Author), Mirna Kantarevic (Illustrator).
The publisher has made 5 copies available. Those will go quickly, so please put this book on your wishlist, so you can get it after someone else is done with it:
Direct links:
Please leave comments on the Amazon info page for this book once you read the book. You can also buy a copy from Amazon, if you’d rather not pass the book onto someone else after mooching it.
Here is a short description of the book:
| It’s November up in the North Pole. Everything’s going along smoothly at Santa’s workshop until he discovers a leak in his roof. Santa soon learns that this little leak is connected to a far bigger problem. The North Pole is melting because of something called global warming! Faced with the reality of what this could mean for Christmas, not to mention the planet and the future, Santa is determined to turn things around. To do so, he calls upon the people he knows better than any other–the children. Much to Santa’s joy, they respond in a way that makes all the difference…in the world. |
New: “Top Books”
April 14, 2008
Now on the “browse books” page at BookMooch, you will find a “top books” button:
| TOP BOOKS > most wishlisted books, most available books and more |
this leads to a menu with three choices:
| MOST AVAILABLE > books that have the most copies available MOST WISHLISTED > books that the most people want MOST MOOCHED > most frequently mooched books |
the top 1000 books in each category are displayed, along with the number of copies (if any) available.
These reports are refreshed daily at midnight pacific time, so the sort order may not be utterly perfect as the day goes on (i.e. some people might mooch a book, and make the count less than the book after it), but I think that’s ok.
My thanks go out to the two independently authored “top books” web sites, who showed me why these were interesting and important reports to have, not to mention doing them quite a long time ago.
This is what the reports look like:
Also in this update, I:
Give your own cards away
April 11, 2008
In a previous post I mentioned the availability of “hand out cards“
Several of the comments asked for cards to be sent outside the USA, and others said they’d be willing to send cards to others who wanted them. Finally, someone suggested that I use BookMooch itself to manage the mailing of cards. What a great idea!
I’ve created a “book” which is actually a box of 1000 cards.
If you’re in the USA and want a box, you can mooch from me:
http://bookmooch.com/detail/BM1207690410167448780
I’m not yet sending from the UK, but I plan to, as soon as I can find a low cost card printing service there. That means you can mooch cards from the “mooch cards UK” account you’ll find listed at http://bookmooch.com/detail/BM1207690410167448780 as having cards.
YOU CAN LIST YOUR OWN CARDS TO GIVE AWAY
I also made “books” of 25, 50, 100, or 200 mooch cards. If you have a box of cards and are willing to send some overseas, that would be a great help.
To list cards you want to give away, search for “moochcards” and click “show all”, or just go to this URL:
http://bookmooch.com/m/s/moochcards/-/0/50/0/-/-/-/-/-/n/-/-/-/-/
click on the card quantity you’re willing to give away, and then click on “give your copy” button:
that will enable other people to mooch the cards from you. You’ll get the points, just as if you sent a book, so you get something for your efforts.
Let’s use this idea to get more cards to other countries!
