2000 founder w. douglas ross & andrew e. bilinski headquarters vienna virginia united states products book rental service services online book rental website www.booksfree.com booksfree is an online book rental company the first to offer flat rate rental by mail to customers in the united states . 1 2 established in 2000 and headquartered in vienna virginia it boasts an inventory of over 100 000 titles and more than 13 000 subscribers . 3 on june 8 2007 the company announced that it had delivered its millionth book . 4 contents 1 corporate history 2 business model 3 memberships 4 competitive environment 5 references corporate history edit the company was founded in 2000 by douglas ross who had previously run a computer systems company and andrew bilinski who had worked for the us air force eds & bdm international . ross originally come up with the idea for booksfree in 1999 and after selling his company was looking at what to do next . us 1 million of start up funding was provided by friends & associates . in 2008 booksfree was recognized by inc. magazine as one of america s top 5 000 fastest growing privately held companies . in february 2009 they shipped their 2 millionth book . in may 2010 the company launched a complementary online book and audiobook swap service booksfreeswap . the free book swap service was developed in response to customer demand for books and audiobooks that were not available through their rental service . an audiobook download and streaming service audiobooksnow was started by booksfree in january 2012 to meet the growing demand for digital content . 3 5 business model edit the company has been described as the books version of netflix 6 and therefore has a similar business model to online dvd rental companies . titles are offered in paperback cd & mp3 cd audiobook formats . separate monthly membership plans are offered for each medium starting at 9.99 for books 12.99 for mp3 cd audiobooks & 22.49 for cd & mp3 cd audiobooks . a combination membership encompassing all media is also available . each plan limits the number of items that can be checked out at any one time . subscribers can pay a higher monthly fee in order to increase that limit . it is also possible to rent individual titles without having a membership . 7 memberships edit subscriptions to the site have grown from 4 000 in 2002 5 and 5 000 in 2003 8 to over 13 000 in 2007 . 3 the vast majority of bookfree s subscribers are women 5 and the company has received coverage in many magazines aimed primarily at a female readership such as woman s day first for woman and o the oprah magazine . 9 competitive environment edit the company s founders were quoted in 2002 as considering their main competition to be libraries and online book retailers noting that each has drawbacks compared with booksfree . 5 comparisons between the services generally focus upon the availability of audiobooks from booksfree and their decision to not carry hardcover books . 10 references edit booksfree.com . washington business journal . 2000 09 29 . retrieved 2008 04 19 . richards thomas kimberly fall 2001 . hokies chase the dot com dream . virginia tech magazine . retrieved 2008 04 19 . a b c tayloe monty 2007 04 11 . online lending library calls vienna home . the fairfax county times . retrieved 2008 04 14 . online book rental service reaches milestone with delivery of one millionth book . booksfree . 2007 06 08 . retrieved 2008 04 14 . a b c d the bookmobile reinvented ; va. start up booksfree.com delivers dime novels adjusted for inflation . the washington post . 2002 10 02 . retrieved 2008 04 14 . book junkies rejoice . o the oprah magazine . 2007 03 01 . retrieved 2008 04 14 . available membership plans . booksfree . retrieved 2008 04 14 . licalzi o connell pamela 2003 05 08 . online diary rent a book . new york times . retrieved 2008 04 14 . media coverage . booksfree . retrieved 2008 04 14 . andriani lynn 2007 07 02 . netflix book model draws competitors . publishers weekly . archived from the original on march 13 2008 . retrieved 2008 04 14 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title booksfree & oldid 738766559 categories retail companies established in 2000companies based in vienna virginiaonline retailers of the united statesbook websitesbooksellingbook rental navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 10 september 2016 at 23 18 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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