Although Bookmooch occupies a large portion of John’s focus – he’s also creator and owner of Magnatune an Internet record label and the creator of Lyris, an email discussion group software package, as well as the web publishing tool TILE.

The art of Bookmooching
This is how it works: First, the user completes an online form with the usual (Name, email etc.) After this is completed, Bookmooch will ask you to provide as many books as you want that you no longer need. After all books are ready for mooching, users can create two lists. One list is the "Wish List". On the "Wish List" users can announce to other Moochers that they are absolutely serious about the books they put on that list. These are books they would definitely mooch from someone if available. Users also make a "save it for later" list which is only viewable by them.

For every book placed to be mooched on the Web site, the user acquires points themselves. Users will also receive points for every book of theirs that is mooched, adding a book to the inventory, and acknowledging the receipt of a book. Points are higher when giving or receiving books from other countries other than your own. The only currency that makes an appearance in the process is the cost of shipping books to fellow moochers.

Users can search for and mooch a book by:

1. Searching for it in the database
2. Receiving an email notification as soon as a book on their list is available
3. Seeing a notification on their lists alerting them to an open copy of a book

Photo credit Sheila Newbery, courtesy of BookMooch.com