Thursday, December 06, 2007

Interesting idea

But will they have the inventory to pull it off? Or just deal with popular books?

Paperspine aims to be a Netflix for books

Founder envisions online rental service for readers

By JOHN COOK
P-I REPORTER

Paperspine is trying to do for books what Netflix did for DVDs. In fact, Dustin Hubbard -- the Microsoft Corp. program manager who co-founded the Issaquah startup on a leave of absence this summer -- said he was inspired by the online movie rental company when he came up with the idea.

Subscribers can check out up to five books at a time. Like Netflix there are no late fees, and members return books in a prepaid envelope. They also can browse by category, say history, romance or science fiction.

"If you read four or five books a year, the service is not that useful," he says. "But if you read one or two or more books a month the service really pays for itself."

 blog it


Go to Paperspine.
Posted by at

3 comments:

Julie said...

This seems for people who have debts to the library.

12/06/2007 11:43 AM
Charles Deemer said...

Or who don't live close to one, or find it a hassle to get to one. Like Netflix, this is about convenience, I think. The problem is it's spendier because the mail shipping costs are greater.

12/07/2007 11:04 AM
Eric said...

I thought it was an interesting idea, too. Only, when I first heard it, it was called BookSwim.com, and it was 7 months ago. I've been a subscriber ever since, and it's been such a relief to not worry about due dates or late fees (or shipping costs, unlike this new company). BookSwim.com costs me less each month than if I were to buy one new hardcover book (which, from following your link, I've learned isn't offered anywhere else)

12/07/2007 1:35 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)