Creativity in book retail

I have come across two different, creative ways that companies have been invented to get books into the hands of readers.

I discovered the first while picking up a book at the Paradies Shops in my local airport Islip, Long Island. They have a Read and Return policy where you can buy the book, read it and return to any of their locations for a 50% refund (not store credit- I checked). They have about 60 locations in airports across the country. Since there is one conveniently located in my local airport, I may actually take advantage of this regularly. Of course, I have a tendency to hang on to books I like, but I am out of shelf space. Since I paid full retail, the 50% return refund would bring the book to me at a cost much lower than Amazon or B&N. The book in question, by the way, was Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell, the only survivor from a Navy Seal team on a mission gone wrong in Afghanistan. Excellent book, written in an authentic voice.
Lone Survivor

The second unique approach is BookSwim. This is a netflix-like approach to 'renting' books based on a monthly subscription, with the US Postal service as their delivery mechanism. They must face some unique challenges to bring this business model into equilibrium, such asthe cost of shipping a larger book compared to a dvd, the cost of producing a printed book compared to mass-copying a dvd, and the time it takes to read a book (many hours)compared to watching a DVD (2 hours) and therefore the number of times you could take advantage of the service in a month. This is a really interesting model that I am interested in learning more about in the coming months. Now, if you connect this service with an Ebook rental, for DVD rental prices (i.e. a few bucks), it could really make some tracks. Fascinating. By the way, I would come up with a different model than Itunes Video or on demand movie rentals where you only have 24 hours to watch the thing once you have started the movie - that really annoys me. I simply do not need added pressure. I have started and not finished several movies due to this restriction - seriously from the digital dark ages. (Rant is now complete)


Most importantly about these options is the unique approach they represent to compete with other media and ultimately vie for the dwindling consumer disposable time. It will be interesting to follow these programs to see how they evolve. Anyone out there see other interesting approaches to getting books into the hands of readers?