How you combine free book swapping with generating more income to authors? "Mooch Before You Buy" may be the answer!

Our friends at BookMooch are conducting a very interesting experience that could generate a new model into the book world.

The concept behind the new "Mooch Before You Buy" program is actually very simple as John Buckman, the founder of BookMooch, explains on BookMooch blog:

"An author freely gives away copies of their book through BookMooch. Once you’ve read the book, if you:

* didn’t like it: relist it on BookMooch and send it to someone else.

* liked it, but want to give it away: consider a small donation to thank the author.

* want to keep it: give the author a larger gift, about the price you’d pay for the book new in a bookstore. "

The goal Buckman explains is to encourage authors to publish books in this “Mooch Economy”, as an alternative to the traditional publishing industry route.

I think this can be a great win-win model, adding another important layer to the swapping system - compensation of authors, who so far didn't receive any proceeds after the first sale of the book, no matter how many times their book was swapped and read afterwards. We had the chance to learn a little bit about this issue from a guest post we had on our blog of author Justine Locke who addresses a similar problem with sales of used books.

In all swapping provides many other indirect benefits for authors such as exposure to new readers, which will be translated in some cases to reviews on Amazon and in other cases to purchases of other books of the author when the reader wants to read more of the author's work. But again I'm sure some authors would still find it unsatisfying in terms of compensation for their hard work, and that's the missing part this new model can provide.

We're living in a digital era, where free content becomes more and more popular, or as Chris Anderson, the author of the upcoming book "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" defined it:"In the digital marketplace, the most effective price is no price at all". We see creators constantly looking for new models that adopt to these changes and still provide them with fair compensation for their work.

Taking that in mind, it will be interesting to follow the BookMooch new model and see how well it manages to make both readers and authors happy. We hope it will generate great success because as we said before the concept of book swapping is very eco-friendly, making the most out of every printed copy, and hence communities such as BookMooch are a great example of sustainable reading.

The first book on the "Mooch Before You Buy" program is “A Cat May Look at a King“ of author and moocher Ramsay Wood, who had provided BookMooch with 32 new copies of his book. “A Cat May Look at a King“ is a beautifully full color illustrated set of ancient stories featuring cats, retold by Ramsay.

And last but not least, I would like to mention our ongoing partnership with BookMooch to offer Green Mooching, a special incentive to BookMoochers to balance out their books, and to Eco-Libris fans to start mooching some books. For every 10 books you balance out you will receive a free BookMooch point you can then use to mooch a book online for free.

So if you don't have a BookMooch account yet go get one :)

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

New survey: 40% of magazine readers will pay more for greener magazines

I learned on Treehugger on a new survey of Hearst Magazines subscribers, which has a very green bottom line: many magazine readers care about the environment and are ready to pay more for magazines printed on recycled paper and committed to eco-friendly practices.

Net Ives reports on Advertising Age on the survey's results:

- Almost four out of five respondents agreed that everyone should care about being eco-friendly.

- 43% of respondents agreed with the statement "If I learned that a product I regularly use was not eco-friendly, I would stop buying it."

- 43% said they would pay more for a magazine printed on recycled paper

- 39% said they would pay more for a magazine committed to eco-friendly practices.

These are pretty good results, although you see an approximate 50% transition ratio - about 80% think everyone should care about the environment, but only about half of them translate it into action, whether negatively to stop using products that are not eco-friendly, or positively by paying a premium for magazines that go green.

Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see that level of support and willingness to pay a premium for magazines that go green. But how much eco-conscious readers are really willing to pay? I guess that when you break it into numbers (more than $1, less than $1, etc.), you will get better understanding of the value readers see in the usage of recycled paper or using eco-friendly practices.

You can see it on a 2005 study of American book and magazine readers that found that almost 80% of consumers are willing to pay more for books printed on recycled paper. At the same time "only" 42% were willing to pay $1 more per book according to the survey.

In any case, it is clear that there is a growing number of readers that are willing to show their support for greener books, magazines and newspapers by paying a reasonable premium for these products, just like they pay it for many other green products they purchase.

More related articles:

Can wheat straw replace trees as the source of paper?

Green Options - ReadyMade Magazine Goes Digital in Green Issue

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net