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Paperback vending machine that BUYS books too

Last week I was sitting in Long Beach Airport waiting for a flight to New York wishing I could swap my nearly completed paperback for another title, and agonizing over whether to lug the book around for the next 3 days or throw it in the garbage. The answer... a paperback vending and collection machine that acts like a mini secondhand bookshop right there in the airport.












Here is how it would work:
  • Initially the vending machine could be stocked from local secondhand book shops but only with titles from the top100 selling list... and sorry no hard bound books.
  • Just like a normal vending machine a book is selected and dropped into the access tray at the bottom of the machine for the user to access it.
  • Books are arranged by their popularity... based initially on a list from Amazon's top selling list for example but eventually the list could come from the vending machines own data.
  • How does the machine BUY books? The machine has a bar code scanner that can be used by the customer to check if the book they want to sell is resaleable. If so, the book is placed in the book retriaval bay, the bar code is scanned and the book is placed in the display rack at the appropriate location... and the customer is given their $3.00
The result... the books get recycled and you get to read a new book for a total cost of $2 if you resell your books.... is this worth pursuing.. please comment below if you think one way or the other.

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