BookSwim provided unlimited rental-by-mail of hardcover and paperback books on a monthly subscription basis.
BookSwim entered and won Rutgers University’s Business Plan Competition in 2008 and an accompanying cash prize of $20,000.
BookSwim's subscribers tended to be high-income avid readers who read over forty books a year; roughly 80% of them were female.
[5] As "the core of [the] business is in bestsellers,"[5] BookSwim cited its rental of hardcovers as its main competitive edge over competitor Booksfree.
[2] The company expressed interest in taking libraries on as customers[9] and its co-founders appeared at the 2008 Colorado Interlibrary Loan Conference to speak about potential partnerships with them.