Agora

1. Open the Add tab in the tab bar.
2. Type the book's title into Search Book. Results come from Google Books. Tap the edition that matches and the title, author, cover, publisher, page count, and ISBN fill in for you.
3. If your copy is not in the results, tap Add Info Manually and type the title and author yourself.
4. Pick a Category, choose a Condition — New, Good, Fair, or Poor — and add a short review if you want to.
5. Tap Take Picture to photograph your actual copy. A listing needs at least one image, so this is required only when the search did not supply a cover.
6. Tap List This Book. It appears on your profile straight away.

If you add both a search cover and your own photo, the search cover is the image other readers see first; your photo sits alongside it on the book's page. Titles and reviews are checked for abusive language before a listing is published, so a listing can be rejected at this step.

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Agora arranges the introduction. You and the other reader arrange the rest.

1. Open a book you want and tap Request Trade. The owner sees the request in their Activity tab.
2. If the owner accepts, a trade opens and a chat thread between the two of you comes with it. If it turns out you each want a book the other has listed, Agora tells you both it is a match and the trade starts without anyone having to accept anything.
3. The trade shows as Accepted until you have both sent a message, at which point it becomes In progress. Use the chat to agree what you are each handing over and where you are meeting.
4. After you have swapped, both of you tap Mark as completed on the trade card. It counts as completed once both sides confirm — one side confirming shows the other that they are waiting on them.

You and another reader can have one active trade at a time, so the chat thread is never ambiguous about which swap it refers to. Agora never takes possession of a book and is not a party to the swap.

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Agora does not vet, verify, or background-check anyone. Treat a swap the way you would treat any other meeting with a stranger from the internet.

• Meet somewhere public and busy — a café, a library, a bookshop, a campus common room. Never a home, yours or theirs.
• Go during daylight, or somewhere well lit and staffed.
• Keep the conversation in Agora until you have met. You do not need to give out a phone number, a social media handle, or an address to arrange a swap, and anyone insisting on it before meeting is worth reporting.
• Tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back.
• No money, ever. Nobody should ask you for cash, a transfer, a gift card, or a deposit. Payment of any kind is against the Terms and is a strong sign of a scam — report it rather than negotiating.
• You can walk away. If the person or the situation feels wrong, leave. Cancel the trade and block them; you are not obliged to explain.

On location: other readers see the neighbourhood or city on your profile and roughly how far away you are — never your address. What you tell someone in a chat is up to you, so share a meeting point rather than where you live.

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Open the chat thread and tap Cancel trade on the trade card. The other reader sees that it was called off, both books go back to being available, and either of you can start a new trade afterwards — with each other or with anyone else.

Nothing is owed to anyone. A cancelled trade is not a penalty and does not affect your profile.

If it went wrong rather than merely fizzling out — the book was nothing like its description, someone did not turn up, or they asked for money — report them from the ⋯ menu on their profile before you cancel, and block them if you would rather not hear from them again. Agora cannot recover a book or arbitrate who was in the right; what it can do is act on the account.

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Every profile, listing, and message has a ⋯ menu. Tap it, choose Report, pick a reason — spam or misleading, harassment or hate, inappropriate content, scam or fraud, impersonation, or something else — and add details if they help.

Reports are reviewed within 24 hours and are never shown to the person you reported. Depending on what we find, the content comes down, the account is suspended, or both.

Blocking is separate, and immediate

Blocking someone takes effect at once and runs both ways: neither of you sees the other's profile, books, or messages, and neither of you can start a conversation. Any follow between you is removed and any active trade is cancelled. The other person is not told. You can undo it from Settings → Blocked Accounts.

For anything involving a threat to someone's safety, contact your local emergency services first, then email agora.exchange14@gmail.com.

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Changing things

• Name, handle, bio, profile photo, banner: Profile tab → Edit Profile.
• Who can see your shelf: Settings → Privacy & Visibility. With a private account, only followers you have approved can see your books and wishlist.
• Notifications: Settings → Notifications, per category. You can also switch them off entirely in iOS Settings.
• Password: sign out and use Forgot password on the sign-in screen to get a reset link by email.

Deleting the account

Settings → Delete Account. You confirm with whatever you signed up with — your password, or a fresh Google or Apple sign-in — and then your profile, listings, messages, follows, trades, blocks, notification settings, and uploaded images are deleted. It cannot be undone.

Full deletion instructions, including what to do if you have already uninstalled the app.

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The search on the Add and wishlist screens queries the Google Books catalogue by title only. That explains most misses:

• Searching by author does not work. "Orhan Pamuk" returns nothing useful; the book's title does.
• Spelling and accents matter. Try the title as it is printed on the cover, and try it without Turkish characters as well.
• Some editions simply are not in the catalogue — small presses and some local editions especially. Tap Add Info Manually, type the title and author, and photograph your copy for the cover. A manually added book trades exactly like any other.
• If every search comes back empty, it is probably a temporary rate limit rather than a missing book. Wait a few minutes, or add the book manually in the meantime. If it lasts longer than a day, email me.

Searching other readers' shelves is a different thing entirely: that only ever shows books people have actually listed. A book nobody near you owns will not appear no matter how it is spelled.

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Yes. Agora is free to download and free to use. There is no subscription, no in-app purchase, no commission on a swap, and no advertising.

No money should change hands between readers either. Agora is for trading books for other books — selling them, or asking for cash, a transfer, or a deposit, is against the Terms.

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