FAQ

RelayRead essentially promotes readership of pre-read books (original prints) that are in good condition. It is on the discretion of the users if they want to give out absolutely new books that have not been read by them. Books that we offer from our Central Relay Library are pre-read books.

We accept all the books that are at least in good readable condition (please refer to the Condition definitions), and have an ISBN mentioned on the book.

You can register yourself by sharing a few details about yourself. In a few simple steps, you gain membership of RelayRead and then you can start giving out your books, or ordering books from other members of RelayRead. All members on RelayRead can both ‘Give’ or ‘Get’ books.

That is totally your choice. It’s great if you give out a book after reading. This allows the book to be in the flow and be read by other members. You will get RelayPoints for every book that you give out, and these RelayPoints will allow you to get and read other books of your choice. This is the very essence of RU.
However, if you wish to not give that book out, it’s completely your choice.

'My Bookshelf' is the list of all the books that you have uploaded on RelayRead to offer to other readers to get from. Other members of RelayRead can choose to order any book present in your ‘My Bookshelf’. Likewise, you get to what books have other readers on RelayRead offered on their 'Bookshelf'.

You will score points (RelayPoints) when someone chooses to take any book/s from your 'My Bookshelf'.

You can see 'My Bookshelf' here, and Add Books.

When you receive orders for the books (that you upload), you need to keep the books ready and hand them over to the shipping executive, by following these simple '3Ps of Giving':

1. Pack the books in a plain envelope or in a plain paper (seal the pack with proper adhesive tapes or glue)
2. Print the shipping label, which you'll get from us over email and SMS when you receive any order for your books (also available in your RelayRead account)
3. Paste the label on the sealed pack containing the books that you packed

When you receive an order for the books that you have uploaded, you'll receive an order confirmation email from us with a link to download the shipping label.

You’ll also get an SMS from us with the link to the download the label

You can also find the shipping label in your RelayRead account (in ‘My Bookshelf’ under the ‘Ordered Books’ tab)

If a single order contains more than one book, please pack all the books in the order together in one pack. You can then paste a single shipping label on this pack.

RelayPoints are like your reading currency on RelayRead. You earn RelayPoints for the books that you give out to other readers on RelayRead. Likewise, you spend or burn the RelayPoints out of your kitty when you order any book from other RelayRead members. RelayPoints deliver the right value to you based on the books that you ‘give’ or ‘get’ on RelayRead.

You earn a higher number of RPs on giving out higher value books as compared to giving out books with lower value. And the better and better quality of books that you give out, the more RPs you earn.

Just in case you fall short of RelayPoints to get a book, you can Purchase them here at a nominal rate.

Yes, you can buy Relay Points from us as per your requirement. Though it’s best that our members earn RelayPoints by giving out good books, we have a provision for you to directly buy the needed RelayPoints from us in case you do not have enough books to upload but want to ‘get’ a book desperately. Whenever you need to get a book, and you are falling short of RelayPoints, you can quickly Purchase RelayPoints on our website.

The current rate for buying RelayPoints is Rs. 0.25 per RelayPoint (excluding of GST @ 18%). The currently prevailing rates are always displayed on the website section where you purchase RelayPoints.

RelayPoints work only on RelayRead for the purpose of transacting books with other members of the platform. RelayPoints cannot be used for any other purpose or at any other place other than RelayRead. RelayPoints cannot be encashed either on RelayRead or at any other place/avenue/platform.

Yes, we work with expert shipping and logistics companies to get the books picked up from you or delivered to you. The books will be picked up from the address as marked by you while uploading any book in ‘My Bookshelf’. You need to simply wrap the book with a paper and hand it over to the shipping person. Likewise the book will be delivered to you at your registered address or another address as indicated by you while placing the order of any book.

You only pay the shipping charges for all the books that you order on RelayRead. You can make online payment of the shipping charges at the time of ordering the book. You do not pay shipping charges for the books that you 'Give' out.

For more details please refer to 'Shipping Policy'.

RelayRead has users spread across the country. Also, these users are readers just like you, and not really business people who deal in books. Hence the task of shipping books (from one member to the other) can be a bit more time consuming than usual delivery of things that you buy online (which are from business owners to users).

The estimated timeline for delivery would be displayed when you are placing the order of a book on RelayRead. The delivery time may vary based on your location, and the city/location of the seller/fellow-member from whom you are ordering the book.

RelayRead has users spread across the country. Also, these users are readers just like you, and not really business people who deal in books. Hence the task of shipping books (from one member to the other) can be a bit more time consuming than usual delivery of things that you buy online (which are from business owners to users).

The estimated timeline for delivery would be displayed when you are placing the order of a book on RelayRead. The delivery time may vary based on your location, and the city/location of the seller/fellow-member from whom you are ordering the book.

When you place an order for a book with another reader/member on RelayRead, you have the opportunity and ability to score your seller on the kind and quality of book that he/she gave to you. We encourage all our members to share their feedback about fellow users from whom they get any book/s. If your feedback is positive, it means a lot to the user who sent you the book; if it's negative, it will do a world of good to your fellow-readers, who look out to get books on RelayRead.

Higher scores of a seller/user would mean that he/she is giving out good quality books to readers, who in turn rate him/her high. As against this, a poor score would mean that a seller is giving out poor quality books to readers like you, and hence it may not be a bad idea to choose not to get books from such users.

RelayRead can choose to suspend membership of seller/users who have very low scores from other fellow-users.

We recommend you to rate the seller based on one or more of the following considerations:

1. Please check the condition of the book as described by the seller. You may make your choice based on that at the first instance.
2. One of the key considerations for you to rate any seller can be whether he/she sent you and Original copy v/s Pirated copy. On RelayRead, we accept only original copies, and encourage all our members to give out only original copies. Hence if you realise that a pirated copy has been sent out to you, you may rate the seller accordingly.
3. The condition of the book sent by the seller, whether it matches the condition as described by the seller on RelayRead. For example, the seller described the book as ‘New-like’, and when you get it you find that it actually is of ‘Acceptable’ condition. In such scenarios, you may choose to give a lower rating to the seller for the book that he/she sent to you.

Since it is extremely important to rate sellers/fellow-users for the books that they give out to readers like you, we encourage you to rate them for every book that you receive. You have the option of rating the sellers/fellow-users for the book they send to you in the following ways:

1. After you receive the delivery of the book that ordered, you can log in on relayread.com, and:
   1. Go to User Ratings
   2. Find out the recent/relevant order that you placed
   3. Rate the seller/fellow-user for the book that you got from him/her
2. In 2 days of a book getting delivered to you, you will get an email from us with a link to rate the seller. You can click on that link and share your ratings and feedback about each of the books that you receive from a seller/fellow user.
3. In case you are not in a position to provide your feedback via the two methods mentioned above, you would get the same feedback form/option when you log in next time on RelayRead. You shall be required to share your feedback, just before you get or give your next book.

It is a centralized library/resource of books created by RelayRead for the benefit of our members. You might find some of the rarest and choicest of books in our CRL.

In line with the core concept of RelayRead, CRL only has pre-read books available. However you can be rest assured that the books that you order from CRL will be in the condition as displayed for each book.

When you search for a book, in the list of displayed, you will also find books available in CRL (highlighted with the CRL mark). You can also see all the books offered by CRL in the Central Library section of the website. You can simply choose such a book and place the order for it, by paying the displayed selling price and shipping cost.

When you order a book from CRL, you need not use your RelayPoints. You simply pay the price as mentioned against the book, and pay for the shipping charges (as usual) to place the order for the book. The prices that we offer on the books available on CRL are very affordable.

You may refer to the below for the same:

1. New-like: As the term describes, this book is just like a new book. It would be difficult to differentiate such a book from a new one. The book has been read only once or twice. The spine of the book, front and back cover, and the pages are intact. The book, including the cover and the pages, has no yellow pages, stains, pen/ pencil marks or obscured text. For hardbound books, the dust jacket will be intact, without any marks or damage. The corners of such a book are clean and intact.

2. Good: The spine of the book, front and back cover, and the pages are intact, though there may be a few visible wrinkles on the spine. The book has no obscured text. You may find names and personal markings on the book. The pages may have turned yellow. For hardbound books, the dust jacket will be present, with minor wrinkles or wear and tear visible. The corners will have previous usage signs/marks.

3. Acceptable: The book has no obscured text. The spine, cover and the pages are intact, though might have minor damages or wear & tear because of the high usage. Visible wrinkles on the spine can be expected, though all pages are intact with the spine. Due to ageing, the book would have dark yellow or brown pages, especially on the edges, and might have names, and personal markings on cover/spine, and or pages.

4. Not Accepted on RelayRead: We do not accept pirated books on RelayRead. We also do not accept books that do not have cover and pages intact, or are torn, or have pages missing. Giving out such books on RelayRead would get reported accordingly by fellow-users and can lead to de-registration from RelayRead.

You may also refer to the pictures and video here

RelayRead is a platform to bring readers from across the country together. The books are given out by the members to other members; and we encourage members to give out good quality books. If you receive any book that is not-up-to-the-mark or as per the condition as described by the seller on the website, you can use the the member rating system to rate the member giving out that book accordingly. If a member continuously gives out bad quality books, his/her scores will keep dropping, members like you will stop ordering books from him/her, and eventually his/her membership would be suspended.

Our users can request for refund under these circumstances:

1. The ordered book does not get delivered to you by the shipping partners
2. A wrong book gets delivered to you

Depending on specific cases, we refund the RelayPoints, facilitation fee and shipping charges to you, in the form of bonus RelayPoints. These bonus RelayPoints, for the purpose of refund of facilitation fee and shipping charges, will be calculated at the same rate at which one would have bought the RelayPoints from us on the day of making the refund request to us.

For the process related to refund, and for further details on this, please refer to our Refund Policy