Anything like NETFLIX for books? (No, I don't mean a library.)

[Ladyhawk]

Late fees at my local library are exorbitant and it has a lousy, lousy selection. I always forget to bring books back on time and end up with $15 late fees. That's a helluva lot, in my opinion...oy!

Since I still don't want cable (too expensive and no real choices), I've been thinking of trying Netflix. Costs to mail books back and forth would be a bit higher, but I'd be assured of no late fees.

One other thing: I can't stand to read books on a computer screen. It's less intimate than snuggling into a chair or bed, plus it dries out my eyes and makes my herniated discs throb. I've found that when I spend too much time on DU, I pay for it!

[idiosyncratic]

1. Just a thought . . . but eBay has everything

I was just looking up a book my sister lent me that I have to send back to her. It is a $15.00 trade paperback and someone has it on eBay for only $.99 plus $2.50 for postage.

You could buy whatever book you want to read on eBay, then sell it back again if you don't want to keep it in your library. I've resold lots of things I've gotten on eBay . . .

[SoCalDem]

2. Look for used book stores.. Sell your old ones, and buy some

you have not read.. very cheap.. when you are done.. repeat :)

[shorebreak]

3. You Bring Back Old Memories

About ten years ago I designed on paper a device that looked like a PDA but bigger, just for displaying books on a LCD.

It had an internal modem and hard drive, and communicated in it's own software to a central "library" where you could own any book at low cost, and you could access everything from daily newspapers and monthly subscriptions, to your favorite periodicals. Once you paid for a book or newspaper once, you could always gain access through your "library" at no charge if you erased it from your hard drive.

I was working with a marketing company and they very quickly managed to find an electronics manufacturer who was willing to sign a license agreement with royalties. We did a final patent search the day before the final meeting and found that Hewlett Packard had filed for a patent 7 days earlier on a device that was so similar, my device was no longer new or innovative in terms of patent protection.

The real kick in the butt came when as time went by, HP never marketed or licensed the device. They buried it. To this day, nobody has one in production. I missed it by a week.

Live and learn.

[fujiyama]

4. I just googled "netflix books"

and I found some site called books free. http://www.booksfree.com/

I also found something called simply audio books www.simplyaudiobooks.com

But if you want to just find books for a great price, avoid major retailers and go to www.fetchbook.info

This site will almost definetely find you the cheapest price for any book. It also searches ebay listings.

[Az]

5. Better than Netflix for books

Project Gutenberg. http://promo.net/pg/
Its an online project collecting literature that is no longer copyrighted. Everything is downloadable and free of charge. There are some masterpieces in there.

[northzax]

6. it wouldn't work

(and I have actually looked into the creation of such a beastie) the reason I thought it would fail is that books degrade much faster than DVDs, or CDs for that matter) one user could easily render a book unreadable, while a netflix DVD might go to 100 people before something bad happened to it (and theoretically, could hit 1000+) the cost of processing returns (seeing if they are in good enough shape to send on to the next client) is exhorbative.