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re: International mooches now 3 points @Gill & Mark Tennant - I do believe Canadians have tried to figure out things to make domestic mooching easier, but certain things are unchangeable unless you want to force all Canadian women to have at least seven babies apiece. It is absolutely less expensive for Canada Post to send certain mail externally than internally. Montreal to New York City is a seven-hour drive over good highway. Montreal to Iqaluit (we have a moocher there!) is a trip to the Arctic Circle that requires a plane. The territory of Nunavut is the size of Western Europe and has MAYBE 36,000 people. You can imagine how cost-effective it is to bring the residents mail. Canada's population is about 55% that of the UK despite being almost forty-one times bigger. Canada Post has to subsidize the more expensive mailing with the things that should be less expensive, and frankly most of the provinces and Territories are much bigger than the UK, so everything is more expensive to send to begin with. The USPS subsidizes more expensive mailing as well, but the population size makes it more economically feasible. Basically, the likelihood that Canada Post will ever bring their prices down by any helpful amount (or even any not particularly helpful amount) is about the likelihood of pigs flying, because they wouldn't be able to afford it. I guess the main reason I don't get the fuss about the extra international point is that I often wound up giving the "bonus" points away anyway because I knew I could still get an international book if I wanted. Come to think of it, I actually gave away more than I took in. chelonianmobile 13 years ago
re: International mooches now 3 points @Msright - Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, but the entire purpose of that comment was to point out what the US domestic mooching scene would be like if we didn't have media mail. In that scenario a 17oz book would indeed cost more than five dollars to mail. :( @DubaiReader - That is an idea I could definitely get behind! I've been trying to figure out what I can do to help make mooching from me less expensive, but it's slightly more complex than it was a few weeks ago in terms of giving both sides of the transaction a fair deal. There really are books for which I would have no problem paying three points, and I've essentially done so in the past due to smooching people. However, even on my wishlist there aren't a ton of "three point" books, and I often don't mooch from my wishlist anyway. One thing I like about BookMooch is the ability to try a book you're not really sure about. For me, most of those books are a good deal for one point and were often an okay deal for two, but three points is a bit much when someone just wants to test the waters. chelonianmobile 13 years ago
re: International mooches now 3 points Fellow US moochers, I know that most of us send Media Mail. Even for hardcovers, most single-book mooches are less than $3 in postage. Please consider that if we didn't have Media Mail, you would also be complaining about certain domestic postage. For smaller books, we would still be okay without Media Mail. A 9oz paperback (average mass market plus packaging) is less than fifty cents more domestically. But try running the numbers for larger books. Currently, if I want to send a 17oz package (average hardcover) to Canada, it costs me $6.60. If the book fits in a flat rate envelope, I can send it anywhere in the US for $5.20. Still less expensive overall, but a crap deal for points. If the book doesn't fit, it's $5.15 for parcel post to my grandmother in New York or $8.67 to Daniel Dae Kim in Hawaii (wishful thinking). That postage to Hawaii is the sort of cost moochers in some other countries are dealing with for even an average-sized domestic book. If you might wind up spending over twenty dollars in order to get the three points to mooch something internationally, you'd be cranky too. Some of the Canadians were already spending that much when it was only two points. chelonianmobile 13 years ago
re: International mooches now 3 points @seanat: No idea how this idea was supposed to encourage international mooching, it just puts people off as it is instantly more expensive at a time when most people's budgets are already suffering. If many of us will be mooching less internationally due to the cost then clearly it'll be harder to send abroad too. <--- YES, THIS. That's the main argument the naysayers have, which is why this was initially proposed as having a trial period. It's not entirely clear to me whether that's still going to be the case or not. @Sonia: If people still want to mooch internationally from me, I'll still send. <--- Well, that's the question, really. You might still be willing to mooch from them, but are they still willing to mooch from you? Given local factors the extra point still balances out okay for you, but for a lot of people that's not the case, which means your pool of potential moochers just shrank. chelonianmobile 13 years ago
re: International mooches now 3 points Unless you count a tentative decision to stop angeling, this isn't going to drastically change my sending habits. Mooching is another matter. Even with a fair number of my own points to spend I keep a pretty careful eye on whether it would be less expensive for me to just buy a given book. With two-point international mooches it often worked out at about the same or cheaper as a used copy, so I'd go for the mooch. Now? A real-life example was quick to present itself. A few hours ago, a "my country only" newbie outside the USA put up two books I'd genuinely like to mooch. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen. First, I'd have to find an angel, which is getting more difficult. (I can't even go into the effect on angels.) Then it would cost six points instead of four. Then if I wanted to smooch someone for being lovely (affirmative!) it would be seven points total for me. The thing is, even if I didn't smooch a point I could still get those used books brand new on Amazon for basically the same amount of money, and it wouldn't take several months to get them, either. Ta-da! Two international mooches prevented. @Rebel Sun - I think some people are surprised because they'd forgotten about it, given that John hadn't said anything for a few months. A week's notice would have gone a long way, especially since we've had newbies since then who might not have seen the initial blog post. chelonianmobile 13 years ago
re: re: A dangerous idea @Emily: I think I meant the one Elaine Aron one. There's one in the UK that appears to be in English, and someone might be willing to angel it for you. The padded flat rates really are pretty amazing. Clearly not everything is going to fit but it means I might be able to afford some multi-mooches outside of North America from time to time. This is probably the best thing the USPS has done for BookMooch aside from keeping Media Mail. A small apology for taking away surface mail, if you will. :) chelonianmobile 13 years ago
re: re: A dangerous idea @Emily: There are padded flat rates now! I feel everyone should know about these. You have to order them from the USPS website, but that's free and they fit things so much better than the regular flat rate envelopes for the same postage rate. I just did a test with one of mine and got a 500-page hardcover and a 275-page hardcover in one envelope without much trouble. You do also have a related edition available on your wishlist for one thing that you could probably get an angel for, though I don't know how you feel about the slightly earlier edition. chelonianmobile 13 years ago
re: A dangerous idea I have a lot of reservations. I do think that this is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it's possible to implement it in a manner that would convince enough people to join up and/or keep the membership after they joined. The whole idea depends on strength in numbers. Personally, I would rather spend the ten dollars on postage to help circulate more books. chelonianmobile 13 years ago
re: Wishlist griping @stacynvh Have you been clicking the "show unmoochable" button when you do your searches where nothing initially comes up? @Frank PBS gives two start-up credits for listing ten books, so they give newbies an inventive to post books as well. I've been here nearly three years and have never had a problem finding a book to mooch if I really wanted. If I didn't think someone in my household would strangle me, I could probably use half my points right now, and I've got 100+. For casual site users, though, finding things can be more difficult. So a big thank you to John for trying to get these changes done! Covers I can take or leave, but Amazon topics and improved general search would be pretty darn great. I am also in agreement with RidgewayGirl. If there are any tasks that the site users can help with, I'm sure there would be a good number of volunteers. chelonianmobile 13 years ago