Is it worth it? What are the pros and cons of the BOB program? Would you recommend it? Personal experiences would be great!!

I love it! I've only had 3 bad trades out of 29. Two of them are no longer members here and unfortunately, they both received my books but neglected to send me mine. The 3rd one went lost and the other member was kind enough to offer me a replacement book. I declined since my TBR pile is huge, but I've made a new friend. I think the $8.00/per year is worth it. I have gotten a lot of books with having a single credit. Being able to save my credits for my wishlist books has been really nice. Give it a try!

Pam

Edt: to correct spelling

I've been a BOB member for a year this week (I'm due to pay again) and it's definitely worth it.  Like Pam, I've had a couple of bad trades, but one eventually got back to me a couple of months later and I found out her Dad died unexpectedly and left her with some new responsibilities.  She did mail me the books at that time.  So, only one bad box out of  over 75.

You can search the boxer directory for a specific book and it will give you a list of boxers who have that book in their library.  Then you can check to see what else they have that you might like.  And it doesn't require any credits!

Diane

I love it too!!  My girls go through a TON of books, they average about 1 a day and that would be a lot of credits i would go through.  So, we use a lot of BOB's.  Makes it so much easier, and cheaper in the long run.  Give it a try

It's a great way to exchange some of the really common books for a book instead of them just collecting dust on your bookshelf. One thing: if you have a lot of books on your shelf that you bought just to post here: that's most likely what the other bob offers will have on their shelf.  So don't go out and post a bunch of series romances you'd never read just to have books listed unless you want to turn down a lot of bob offers where they have nothing but series romances.  (or mysteries or whatever) When you first join you'll get a lot of offers.  You don't have to accept an offer.  You can turn them down and negiotate the number of books you want to trade.  You can also look at their feedback record and see if they have a lot of negatives. 

I totally agree. I haven't been a BOB member for that long but LOVE it. I haven't had but one bad trade where I received a water damaged book. For $8.00 a year it is really worth it to me. :0)

Jenn

I love it... when I first joined, it seemed that movement on my bookshelf was slow, then I decided to give BoB a shot.  I have had quite a few trades since then and really do like it.  Though I would just give some advice if you DO join... if you use RCs then make sure it is active during the trade.  In a couple of the Boxes I recieved books that were postable but that didn't meat my RCs and it was then that I realized it wasn't automatic.  I wasn't upset at the other members, but just realized I had to be more careful.  All in all, it has been a great experience and definitely worth the $8.00/year. 

It is a great way to get books without having to spend the credits. 

I've done over 200 trades for just over 1,000 books, lost a couple, but with such an overwhelming amount of good trades to bad trades, I can't ever complain about a couple lost or bad books. I tend to keep track of the cost per book, when we mail, since we only mail once a week. And most of the time, because of multiple book boxes, my cost per book is usually between $1.25-$1.50 so that's a great advantage. It has allowed me to keep my credits for books that aren't posted often, so have to be WL'd and that's really great!

I've been a member of BOB for over a year. I renewed it not to long ago.

Most of it has been WONDERFUL! The main thing is you don't have to use credits. Plus a lot of the times when I pick like let's say 6 books or so some people will say "I just see 3 of your books that I want & I'll go ahead and send you all 6 that you picked". Other times people will send extra books as a bonus. It is wonderful. At times it has been like Christmas having boxes of books come to our house. lol

I have had a few bad things though. One woman was just plain awful! She had good feedback showing she had swaped boxes before with no problem. She reqeusted I think 5 books from me. I picked 5 books from her for my daughter. I mailed her box right away that same day. She marked hers mailed too.

So 2-3wks go by and nothing. No box from her and her box is never marked that she got it. I write her asking her if she got and no answer from her. I wait and wait. After about a LONG month of nothing. I write her one day kind of annoyed. I tell her "I find it had to believe that BOTH boxes are lost in the mail."

She gives me some story about how the box she mailed to me was returned. This makes me surprised since I've used Paperback Swap for awhile and never had a problem plus living at the address I do I have gotten mail when the street number is wrong or road name & so on. She says she will mail it again. I'm annoyed and forget to even ask about the box I mailed her.

Long story short this junk goes on for a month or so again. Going on 2 months. She ignores all my emails. Then shows she is no longer a member of Box O Books. I email her and she says "Oh yeah I plan to join again soon."

I do email the website owners letting them know about this. I'm out 5 or 6 books and upset. These were very nice homeschooling books. One book even costing around $15 by it self alone. The books were in like new shape too. Plus my poor little girl who was 7 at the time is upset that her books have no come yet either. All this time the annoying open swap still shows up in my PENDING BOXES. The website owners never email me back.

So moving almost a YEAR LATER - I get a message from her saying "THANKS FOR THE BOOKS. Sorry for the delay. I got a divorce." WHAT????????

I reply to this message in the positive feedback she leaves me. I had already left her negitive feedback months before since I never got my books. I said something like "I never got your books, you ignored all my emails then out of the blue almost a year later you finally mark my box recived & I'm still out 5 books?"

She never answered me.

Plus - I had used Paypal Shipping which clearly showed she had gotten my books about a week or two later AFTER I mailed them.

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I have heard others who too have lost a bunch of books, but I seriously think it is rare. I have learned a few things:

1. If someone requests books from you ONLY mail their books once they mail yours. I know a bunch of people who do this.

2. Keep in contact with the person.

3. Use Paypal shipping which uses DC (delievery comformation FORGIVE MY SPELLING???) this way you have a record of when you ship it and when they get it.

4. Look at their feedback rating before you deal with trading with them.

All in all I LOVE Box o Books. Last year I used it to stock up our homeschool book shelf in our homeschooling room. You wouldn't believe all the wonderful books we got and they saved us SO MUCH money!!!! I think we only bought 3 books from Amazon.com costing us $50!

i have a box o' books question.  is it better to have a beefed up shelf, with lots of choices on it?  i only have 40 books posted...do you think this would be a problem?

Jessyka see my post above:  You don't have to have a big shelf. I have less than 20 books posted and I did 2 BOBS this week.  If you load your shelf up with a bunch of books you'd never read than you'll get a bunch of BOB offers and there shelves will be loaded with those kinds of books too. Now some people like Sherry have huge shelves with every genre.  So keep in mind if you load yourshelf up with a genre you don't like-you'll be turning down lots of BOB offers.

I personaly prefer to do smaller trades.  I'd hate to have a huge box of books go lost and I rarely find more than a couple I want on the other person's shelf anyway. 

I agree with Mary, Jessyka, you don't need to have a shelf the size of mine to box. It usually helps to have more than 15 or so, but I've seen people do it, and I've traded with people that have that small of a shelf. They can only do smaller boxes, but if they are selective about whose shelves they select to look for books, they will have good luck. Your shelf of 40 will do just fine. There's not a lot of reason to get more books, unless they come to you free, which nearly all of mine have. Those that I have bought for posting, have long since been shipped :)

I'm on my second year of BOB and I love it! I've only had one trade where I received two water damaged books. Otherwise all my BOB trades have been excellent. I use it mainly to get alot of the mystery/thriller books I read. It's also great if you want to try out a new author. No worrying about wasting a credit on a book you may or may not like. Totally worth the 8.00 a year :)

Tammy