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re: Points policy change thoughts
First of all, John, thanks for continuing to think through how to improve Bookmooch, great as it already is. The macro-economic analysis would be more substantive if it takes into consideration real-life factors as the economy and costs (and maybe the rise of ebook use as well). I wholeheartedly agree with bookel from Australia that money problems overall was a prime factor in the past two years and until now. Let's break that down into less money to buy books that will later be listed for Bookmooch and rising postage costs. If there are venues and ways where we can address both these major concerns, then I think this will have a positive impact on Bookmooch traffic. Re less money to buy books, if there are more and more ways we can share with the Bookmooch community on how to buy books at minimum cost, the better. The book price info is one positive step. But I think there should be more active ways, like a permanent forum where people can post great book (bargain) sales, whether of big or small stores (hopefully not-too-many closeout sales), yard sales, library sales and community sales events. And maybe if there are a whole lot of Bookmoochers interested in one book, for example, maybe we can negotiate directly as a Bookmooch community with the publisher or author for a hefty discount. As to rising postage costs, the new meet-up feature is one measure that addresses this. But there can be other effective ways. Like maybe we can leverage the clout of having so many thousands of transactions a year so we can get very good discounted rates with either the post office or couriers (specially for international sends). I think this can be very much doable in the top five or eight countries with Bookmoochers, and specially in the U.S. In particular, those in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia can negotiate with any one of the courier heavyweights (FedEx, DHL, etc.) to give Bookmoochers rates competitive to those the post office gives. Well, you can negotiate with the post office for lower rates as well, why not? Now of course it doesn't have to be personally you to do the negotiating on the above points, John. Anyone who's willing to take the cudgels to "lobby" these points and who'll have your blessings can do. It might seem far-fetched for now to squarely face these concerns and do the "unthinkable" step of negotiating for the Bookmooch community. But I believe these have to be and can be addressed, sooner or later. Re the multi-mooch proposal: it's definitely a good thing if that's in place, though I really wouldn't know how substantive that would impact.
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