I haven't gotten any requests for books in about a year but there are many books that I'd like to request from others. I was wondering if it would be ok to initiate a trade with a member by asking them to look at my books and if there's a book they want and I want a book of there's then we could trade? Has anyone done something like this? I'm just wondering because it seems a little inefficient to just sit back and wait to see if someone somehow stumbles upon one of your books so that you can request a book that you want.

 it seems a little inefficient to just sit back and wait to see if someone somehow stumbles upon one of your books so that you can request a book that you want.

It's not inefficient or even random how your books get ordered, it's the FIFO system.  First In, First Out.    When you place a book on your bookshelf to be ordered, it gets placed at the end of the line.   The line may be small of just a few copies ahead of yours, or there may be a thousand copies ahead of yours.   The way to check- is to place that book on your reminder list and see how many copies there already are when you post the book.    Your book gets ordered when your book gets to the front of the line in the system.

Another way to advertise your book shelf is to go over to the book bazaar forum.  A lof of people have success with offering deals too in the book bazaar.

Also, the bigger your bookshelf and the more number of books you have on it, means you will get more requests.

The type of deal you are talking about is what Box of Books is for.  It's a paid service that costs around $9/year.  A lot of people trade the more heavily posted books that way.

Or you could just run a deal to move out some books and earn some credits.

Mary L., what do you mean by "run a deal"? Btw, love your avatar!

You can run a deal in the forum "Book Bazaar". It's really easy and you won't be disappointed. Check it out. I think you will like it.

If you go to the Community menu and choose "discussion forums", then scroll down to the Book Bazaar, you'll be able to see some of the deals people offer there.  (Maybe you'll find a deal that will interest you!) A common one would be, say, 2 for 1, or 3 for 1, on anything on your shelf.  However, deals like that work better if you have a lot of books on your shelf.  With fifteen books on your shelf, you would do better in my opinion to find more books that you can post here.  Maybe you have friends who don't know what to do with all the books they've read, and would be willing to give them to you to trade here.  Or maybe someone in your neighborhood is offering a bunch of books in good condition at a garage sale.

Or, if you refer friends to this site, you can earn referral credits.

Also, you can buy credits in the kiosk, or from other members in the Book Bazaar. 

And here are some other good ideas from the help center:

How do I get more credits

In response to your initial question, we aren't allowed to trade books without credits here except through the Box of Books program.

Well you only have 15 books posted. But you could offer a deal in the book bazaar of 3 books for 2 credits or something like that.  Some people to 3 for 1 but I wouldn't run a deal for less than 2 credits.  1 wouldn't cover the postage.  I would do 5 for 3 or 3 for 2.  Go check out the book bazaar like others mentioned and you'll see what people are doing.

Like someone else said, you can buy credits pretty cheap in teh bazaar.  Cheaper than buying used books just to post. 

Or you can just buy credits from someone in the Book Bazaar.     Credits sell for as low as $2.30 each, which is lower than the cost to ship one book.

Sara - I'm just wondering if you realize how PBS works.  It sounds to me like you think you can only request a book from someone who requests a book from you.  Even though the site is paperbackSWAP, you're not trading books with one person.  (Unless you're doing box of books).  If you have the credits, just search for a book and order  ;) 

If I read too much, or not enough, into your question, I'm sorry.

Thanks for all your help. I was not aware of the Bazaar section or the Box-of-Books. I will check those out.

Jody, I didn't explain myself very well in my question. I know that I can purchase credits. I meant to say that I don't have a lot of money but I have a huge addiction to books. I told myself when I joined PBS that I wouldn't spend money on extra credits. Otherwise I would have been broke by now. At first I was getting requests every week but its down to 2 a year. I guess essentially what I wanted to know is how to get more credits without buying them full price. Which you all have answered wonderfully.

So, in Box-of-Books if I pick a boxer and add some books from their shelf then they have to also want books from me?

Thanks again.

Welcome to the forums Sara :) Its a wealth of information in here on how to make trading more fun, more efficient, and even cheaper than the already cheap PBS way of getting books

"I know that I can purchase credits. I meant to say that I don't have a lot of money but I have a huge addiction to books. I told myself when I joined PBS that I wouldn't spend money on extra credits."

Sara,

The average cost to mail a book is $2.47. The current price for a credit  in the bazaar is around $2.30. So, it's actually cheaper to buy a credit in the bazaar  than to mail a book to earn a credit.

Unfortunately Mistie is right: it's cheaper to buy "used" credits from another member than it is to buy cheap books and mail them.  Unless you read them first than that offsets the cost of acquiring them.  Or you get a lot and do a lot of deals to ship in multiples.  If you use the credits you buy to order books that aren't heavily posted or to acquire WL books than you can repost those and get a credit back for them. 

When I started credits sold for $3+ in the book bazaar.  The only time you saw less than $3/credit was if someone wanted to sell a big chunk of them to one person and might go down to 2.75.  Postage was only about $2.20 for media mail for a standard MMP.  So if you could get books for less than $1.00 just to post it was worth it.  Now it's cheaper and involves less time to buy them from someone. 

Not that I am incouraging people to buy credits instead of posting books. I still mail books. But I have never had a hard time earning credits as most of what I read is WL.  But if I did have a hard time, I'd just buy them and not use them on heavily posted books.