Posted by Dave F. at 12/4/07 11:06 p.m.

Another challenge: there are these things called public libraries. They don't charge anything to take out books. You can even renew them online and put holds on them. The first one you could borrow from in the US was opened in 1636.

Posted by unregistered user at 12/5/07 6:42 a.m.

So I checked out all three websites listed here. Booksfree looks pretty lame (no hardcovers/new releases), but the other one, BookSwim, well, Paperspine just looks like a cheap knock-off of it.

Posted by unregistered user at 12/5/07 7:22 a.m.

Besides competition from free public libraries there's also competition from Amazon's Kindle. I can't see this succeeding.

Who is going to pay $300 a year to rent books?

Posted by John Cook at 12/5/07 7:50 a.m.

Good point on Kindle. I should have asked Hubbard about that.

John Cook

Posted by unregistered user at 12/5/07 8:45 a.m.

Public library systems in most other parts of the country are not as well developed as in Seattle, and so there may be a market for it - although $25 a month seems to be rather steep.

The wait for new movies on Netflix a long one, so if customers queue up for the new bestsellers, it is unlikely that PaperSpine will be able to fulfill in a short period of time. After a couple of months of a new book release, you can find books from discount stores where you can buy it at half the cover price or less.

Assuming that you buy it at $5/book (alibris or other discounter), you have to read at least 5 books a month, every month, to break even as a customer. Is this worth it?

Posted by unregistered user at 12/5/07 8:48 a.m.

Also, not all books may fit in a standard mailbox (esp. if it is in a padded envelope). The logistical issues with this are just as painful as Webvan's.

Posted by unregistered user at 12/5/07 8:49 a.m.

What is a book?

-Anyone under 35; or the people that go to Web 2.0 websites

Posted by unregistered user at 12/5/07 9:44 p.m.

I can imagine all the germs, fomites and myriad of all crap being passed and finger-licked along the way with all these books. No way I am using it!

Posted by unregistered user at 12/5/07 9:57 p.m.

Interesting article and reader comments. Adding my two cents. I support these subscription models, just like Netflix. On Netflix I spend the roughly $18/month to have access to three movies at a time. Some months I only watch 1-2, other months i'm more of a movie hound and watch 4-5. To me, it's all about convenience and having what i want and when delivered to my doorstep -- to me it's worth it, even if I don't watch movie after movie. Without Netflix I don't know how often i'd be able to set aside time to visit the movie store. With work and every day life it's difficult. But, i'm always online and it's incredibly simple to simply set up a queue.

Posted by unregistered user at 12/6/07 6:42 a.m.

If this idea gets funded by a VC it is time to pull everything out of the stock market and head for the hills.

Posted by unregistered user at 12/6/07 10:05 a.m.

Hi, this is Dustin from Paperspine.
It's been fun watching the comments come back from John's readers. I'd like to address a couple of them for you.

I get asked about public libraries often and I've personally used publicly libraries for years. The truth is public libraries are kind of like public transit. They get the job done but not always in a way that is convenient, flexible or on a timetable that works for you.

There was actually a front page article in the Seattle Times on November 6th, 2007 titled "Looking for that hot new title? At Seattle library, wait may be long." The article gives examples of how library patrons may wait over 3 months for a popular book. For example the Seattle Public Library has 185 copies of "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and 784 people on the waiting list for it. Most libraries allow you to keep a book for 3 weeks, so once you do the math you'll see it will take a long time before you can get that hot book you want to read.

This leads to my second point about libraries. They are not free, they just start that way. How many times have you had an overdue book? Libraries generate a fair amount of revenue from this. It can be incredibly frustrating to not be done with a book and have to decide whether to keep it and incure late fees or just return it unfinished.

This leads to my 3rd and final point. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Half.com are all examples that the library system isn't able to accomodate everyone's reading needs. The volume of business these companies do proves that people would rather just buy the book and give it away later than go through some the hoops and hassles of the library. To be clear, I'm not bashing libraries. I love libraries, but I think to make the claim that they offer all the convenience, flexibility and availability a book reader would ever want is inaccurate. However, if your library is meeting your needs I think that is great. Just like if the public transit meets your needs, take the bus. For me personally, I prefer to drive.

Kindle is an exciting new technology and I've had some experience with ebooks in the past. The Sony product is quite impressive as well and has been out for over a year. Today ebooks make up less than 1% of the total book publishing industry. I get excited watching new technologies work to transform the way we do things. Kindle is a step towards that, but at $399 for the device and $10 for the books, I expect there are many years left before book readers are going completely digital with their reading.

Thanks for the comments and discussion.
Best Regards,
Dustin

Posted by unregistered user at 12/6/07 12:58 p.m.

I've been trying to finish reading Don Quixote for over a year. I tried to check it out from the library. First, I had to drive to the library to sign up for a library card. They didn't have the book on the shelves, so I requested the book. Later, the library emailed me when the book arrived and I drove to the library to pick it up. But, I didn't finish reading it in time. I only made it half-way through before I had to drive back to the library to return it. So I requested it again. But this time, I was too busy to pick it up, and they gave it to someone else. So, I requested it a third time. But this time, I never received an email notification from the library. It's been months, and I have no idea what happened. And I'm too busy to try to figure it out.

And a comment about content: most of the the really important content is not on the web, it's still in books. When I think about the really important things I've read in the last year, they're not websites. They're books, like The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss or The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

This service will all me to affordably and convieniently consume a lot more of the content I care about, so I think it's great.

Posted by unregistered user at 12/7/07 6:19 a.m.

When you look at the pages in Firefox the bottom of the page is all messed up. Click on the Learn More tab and it only gets worse.

The site is beta, but only MS (or one of its employees) would release a beta site without at least looking at it on multiple browsers. These guys want to make their living on the web and they haven't addressed something that is in the first 100 pages of any web design book.

Posted by unregistered user at 12/7/07 9:46 a.m.

Although he was posting about the Kindle, Tim O'Reilly had an elegant blog entry on O'Reilly Radar noting that time, not price, is the limiting factor of books.

"Unlike music, which is quickly consumed (a song takes 3 to 4 minutes to listen to, and price elasticity does have an impact on whether you try a new song or listen to an old one again), many types of books require a substantial time commitment, and having more books available more cheaply doesn't mean any more books read."

The same goes for movies. You can consume a movie in less than a few hours while a book can take days. IMO most people would be fine with a $25 budget for books per month and come out ahead in the long run.

I'm an avid book reader and think Amazon Prime gives me the convenience I need to get the book I want. And the bricks & mortar stores work well when I want my "library" fix.

Posted by unregistered user at 12/9/07 10:14 a.m.

sorry, I just don't believe that "renting books" is going to be a sustainable business model. Books are completely different than DVD's in this comparison(at the highest level, think about the cost difference in SHIPPING a .1 ounce DVD vs. a 2 pound book) and bookswim has been up with their service for over a year and rumor is they are sucking wind(partially validated by the lack of traffic, web stats). The price of books, either used OR new is simply not at a high enough price point where people are going to "rent" them monthly.

Posted by unregistered user at 12/10/07 6:26 a.m.

"When you look at the pages in Firefox the bottom of the page is all messed up. Click on the Learn More tab and it only gets worse."

It looks like this has been fixed.

Posted by unregistered user at 12/10/07 7:26 a.m.

Yes, we fixed this bug when we saw it reported on the blog. Sorry for the initial inconvenience.

Thanks,
Dustin

Posted by unregistered user at 4/1/08 3:39 a.m.

A netflix for books is a great idea!
Happy april fools day! go watch some Cute Videos :)

Posted by unregistered user at 7/25/08 9:18 a.m.

You can rent DVDs at the library too, but Netflix keeps chugging along. I was impressed with the site's improved selection. They had a series of books that were not available at my library, and it would certainly be cheaper to rent them versus buying from Amazon. This won't overtake libraries, but it can be a nice supplement for book lovers, especially those who don't live near super-stocked libraries.