BookSwim was a private American online book rental service, offering rental-by-mail of both hardcover and paperback books. The company was launched in 2007.

History

George Burke co-founded BookSwim with friend Shamoon Siddiqui in April 2007, in Shamoon's basement for the first ten months of the company's existence. The company branched out, briefly moving to Aberdeen, NJ before establishing headquarters in Newark, NJ with distribution facilities in eastern

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

Rental Service

BookSwim provided unlimited rental-by-mail of hardcover and

paperback book A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, lea ...

s on a monthly subscription basis. Subscribers add books to their online reading list, called a Rental Pool. When the subscriber returned finished books, the next books in the Rental Pool would ship out. The similarity to

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...

's business model led to the website informally being called the 'Netflix for books.' BookSwim's plans began at $9.99 per month and included only hardcover and paperback books.

Recognition

BookSwim entered and won

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

’s Business Plan Competition in 2008 and an accompanying cash prize of $20,000. The company was named a 'Startup to Watch' by

Entrepreneur Magazine ''Entrepreneur'' is an American magazine and website that carries news stories about entrepreneurship, small business management, and business. The magazine was first published in 1977. It is published by ''Entrepreneur Media Inc''., headquarte ...

, and the New Jersey Technology Council.

Market Conditions

BookSwim's subscribers tended to be high-income avid readers who read over forty books a year; roughly 80% of them were female. As "the core of hebusiness is in bestsellers," BookSwim cited its rental of hardcovers as its main competitive edge over competitor

Booksfree BookFree is an online book downloading website, the first to offer free book downloading to all its visitors all over the world. Established in 2000 and headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, it has an inventory of over 100,000 titles and more than ...

Relationships with Libraries

Though

libraries A library is a collection of Document, materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or electronic media, digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...

’ reactions to BookSwim included anxiety and resentment, BookSwim claimed to not see itself as competition with libraries. The company expressed interest in taking libraries on as customers and its co-founders appeared at the 2008 Colorado Interlibrary Loan Conference to speak about potential partnerships with them. In October 2008, BookSwim donated an extra 13,000 books from its inventory to the

Newark Public Library The Newark Public Library (NPL) is a public library system in Newark, New Jersey. The library system offers numerous programs and events to its diverse population. With eight different locations, the Newark Public Library serves as a Statewide Re ...

near its new offices.

References

External links

Book Design & Printing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bookswim Book rental American book websites Companies based in Newark, New Jersey American companies established in 2007 Defunct online retailers of the United States