In my inbox this morning is an email from Bookswim.com, which claims to be "a full-service membership-based online book rental club." Bookswim debuted yesterday. Plans start at $19.99 a month. They send you three books at a crack. No shipping charges. No late fees and a catalog of 150,000 books.

"July 17, 2007-MONROE, NJ —BookSwim.com, a full-service membership-based online book rental club, officially announces its launch today. The subscription service, which lends readers paperbacks and hardcovers through the mail, opened its doors to beta testers only two months ago. The plans, ranging from three books at-a-time for light readers all the way to 11 books at a time for heavy readers and families, have shed a new light on a new delivery method for the centuries-old book medium.

"BookSwim book rental is now affordable and reflects the true nature of consumers saving money by renting over buying.

""The cost has gotten out of hand, especially when you might not always desire ownership," explains George Burke, Chief Marketing Officer. "Book prices shouldn't be a factor for people who love books. The whole purpose of BookSwim is to help avid readers save money on all their favorite authors: J. K. Rowling, James Patterson, and Jodi Picoult, just to name a few.""

I'm skeptical. This model seems to be working for Netflix. But avid book readers are probably far fewer than avid movie-watchers. It takes only a couple hours to watch a movie vs. several days -- minimum -- to read a book (for most people anyway). So the capacity for people to consume Bookswim's product is more limited than for Netflix. If Bookswim does get substantial numbers of customers, it'll be vulnerable to competition from Barnes & Noble and Borders, who will start their own rental services. And then there's the public library. I imagine Bookswim will concentrate heavily on newly released bestsellers, as movie-rental places do. These can be hard to come by at the library, but still... At at price of $240 a year, Bookswim has its work cut out.