No, you do not have to meet up, and you can use the mail.
In addition, you can actually setup to pay or receive payment for your book from PayPal.
The exchange process is the same, except that you ship the book
Is BookDefy Really Free?
Yes, BookDefy is completely free. We do not make money off of buying and selling your textbooks, but we do make money from advertising and commissions from other advertisers on the site. We do not, nor will we ever charge a student for using BookDefy.
How BookDefy Works
We have made BookDefy as simple and easy as possible to use. The core system is as follows though;
Add a textbook: You can either add a book you have to sell, or request a book (click on "books I need" from your control panel)
Search for books: If you have added a book that you need, you will automatically be alerted with an e-mail or a text message (if you have requested to do so), when someone adds the book you need. Otherwise, you can use our textbook search engine to find the book you need. Professors can also list the books on BookDefy that they want you to have, and you can find that under the "My Courses" tab.
Set up an exchange: Once you find the book, you can request an exchange. If local, you tell the other student what times you can meet them, and suggest a location. If you are mailing your book, you have to provide your address (which won't be disclosed, except for your country and state) until after you have paid for your textbook).
Your exchange takes place You either pay (or are paid), or meet up publicly and exchange your textbook.
Complete your exchange Since BookDefy is a community, you will be able to rate the person you exchanged books with. This tells everyone information about that student, and can provide insight into whether another person would want to exchange books with them.
Why can't I delete my book?
If you have scheduled an exchange, or have an exchange pending, you cannot delete the book until you have completed (or cancelled) the exchange. Remember though that cancelling exchanges will be shown to other users and will impact your rating on BookDefy. Also, after you complete an exchange, your book is automatically removed from the system, but your book and exchange details are archived.
Will you buy my textbook?
NO.
We are in the business of helping students exchange textbooks. We do not want to purchase them, and then start reselling them at a high profit.
We do know that sometimes students need money, and that selling some books back will give them more money, and that is why we created our book buyback engine - which allows students to search several providers to see who will buy their book for the most money.
However, we, ourselves - we will NOT buy your book back. We do not want to profit off of reselling textbooks. We do not want to be like the other guys out there, and want students to take initiative and save money. If we broke our cardinal rule, we wouldn't be much of a help to you would we?
You compare textbooks, why?
At BookDefy, we are realists. If you are a student, and have a book worth $100, then why would you wait around and swap it with your classmates? The answer is, you wouldn't.
We originally built our price comparison engines to give students a real idea of what their books are worth, but realized quickly, that you could make extra money with them on your books, and could list the books you are really getting "scammed" on through BookDefy. We also partnered with a company to plant a tree whenever a textbook is bought or sold to one of our partners, along with everytime a textbook exchange is completed on BookDefy.
We are against waste, so, this is our way of giving back as well as helping students. With BookDefy, this is a win-win for everyone, including the environment!
What are the textbook statuses?
A textbook status is visible from the My Books page, or the Books I need page after you log into BookDefy. Below is a description of the statuses, and what they mean
Pending: This means that you have added a book, but it is not live or searchable on BookDefy. To make a book live or "active", you will need to specify the book's quality, and also to specify a price for your book. More information can be found here.
Active: This means that your book is visible to other students on BookDefy, and people can offer to exchange this book.
Pending Exchange: This means that someone has requested to exchange this textbook with you. You will need to log into your members area and click on the "exchanges" link to either confirm or deny this exchange.
Exchange Scheduled: This means that you have confirmed an exchange, and you will either need to meet the other student, or ship the book (after you receive payment of course).
Privacy and BookDefy?
Our privacy policy is simple. We do not share your information with other businesses, period. We only ask for a limited amount of information. BookDefy is NOT a social networking site. If you want to post things that will get you into trouble, go to Facebook or Twitter. In fact, what ever personal information we collect from you, we think its only fair to give you our personal information. If we betray your trust, you can betray ours, its that simple.
However, our number one concern is security. If something happens that looks threatening to one of our users, we will contact any and all appropriate authorities. However, we do not blindly disclose anything to anyone. For more information, please view our privacy policy.
Control messages on BookDefy
By default, if you are a member of BookDefy, we will send you e-mails concerning the textbooks you have added to the website. This is because you can tie up another person's book, or will not be notified that another person wants your book. We only e-mail you when you have a textbook exchange request, an exchange taking place, and we remind you to "complete" your exchange - i.e. rate your exchange partner.
You can also opt in to get notified of other things, for example when a user messages you, or when someone adds a book you want to BookDefy. You can also receive these messagse by text, because - time is of the essence.
Professors are integral in the BookDefy community because it allows students to easily find both the books required, and old editions of textbooks from the professor. To get your Professor involved, you can e-mail them, talk to them, or click here, and we can e-mail them for you.
Navigating BookDefy
BookDefy is designed to be easy. Most of BookDefy uses a single-page design that has quick loading forms to easily and simply allow you to add in new information and update existing information.
The menu bar at the top is the core of BookDefy and allows you to easily and quickly access almost any part of the site. This changes when you log in, and whether you are a student, partner or professor.
Links are bold and blue, and editable fields will have this icon next to it. If you see this icon just hover your mouse over it, and more information will be displayed.
next to it. If you see this icon 
just hover your mouse over it, and more information will be displayed.