Ryan Call’s book trade thing: it really works!
“No matter how good of a tan you get, there’s always someone around with a better one. One year, me and Tutti went to Greece. I thought, I’m gonna get the best fuckin’ tan ever. And it happened. I came back home and nobody had a better tan. I went and visited everybody I knew and I thought, There, you fuckers, top that.”
—For Those Whom God Has Blessed with Fingers by Ken Sparling.
Thanks, Ken. This is really rad so far.
Everyone else should also become a part of the HTMLGiant Book Exchange.
HTMLGIANT Book Exchange
HTMLGIANT Book Exchange is a place to post lists of books you want or books you’d like to get rid of in return for other books.
It’s pretty simple: in the comments section, post your lists. Then if you see a book you want, nest your reply under the list you found it. Though it’s up to you and the other person to work out details of the trade, we will manage the lists and hopefully make a market of it, perhaps one more closely-knit and attentive to ‘good books’ over ‘just any old thing,’ in light of the now overrun book trade sites like Bookmooch and etc.
[In that mind, when you are listing books, please try to be selective in your ‘what I have’ lists, avoiding the common things that most anyone would have or could easily find, and instead try to focus on books that might not be as readily available for trade: i.e. less classics, more contemporary. If someone is looking for, say, Stephen King or Mark Twain, they can ask for it by name, and then you can follow up.]
[Also, if you post a list and want to go back and add more, make a note nested under your original and we can consolidate. Don’t make more than one node post of haves/wants, as that will get messy.]
This will be chaotic and wonderful to begin with. We’ll learn as we go, and if plans go as plans might, we plan on developing the thread into a page of its own. More on that later.
For now, a good way to search for a specific book you want once the list populates, use the Find command in your web browser, and hope it got spelled right.
Please post your lists, use some discretion (a compendium of every book you have in your attic is not necessary). Let’s do some sharing.