I just added about 30 books to bookshelf for people to request. When I first joined I only added 3 and 2 were taken immediately! I'm a little bummed that no one was looking for any of these books that I posted. A lot are pre-teen/teen, but some are some newer fiction and non-fiction titles. Is there a way for me to promote them? I have some books n my wishlist and want to be sure I have credits so I can get them as they become available. Is there something i am dong wrong as to wjhy peple aren't seeing them like they did before? Or is it just that none of these titles is desirable? If that is the case, do you normally just wait for someone to take them or what?

Sorry for so many questiosn since I am am so new to this. I read through all of the help stuff and didn't seem to have anything in terms of what I should do to get books to move.

Ellen, you can promote your bookshelf in the Book Bazaar area of the forums.  Some members find it effective to offer deals there -- you'll see how things work when you are there.  You might also read the document titled "How to get your Books Requested!" in the Help Center -- just search for "requested" and it will come right up.

Patience is the name of the game here at PBS -- patience when ordering or waiting for someone else to order from you.  ;-)

Don't forget that you can purchase additional credits as needed from the PBS Kiosk or from other members in the Bazaar if you need them for Wish List items.

Ellen, many new members experience a "newbie" order rush, and then subsequently do not have as many books ordered from remaining books on their bookshelf.  Most new members post books they've recently gotten first and these are often either newly published or in "hot" genres and these are frequently WishListed and thus the new member gets a lot of orders from the books they first post.  They then go back to their home collection to find other books to post and these may not be as "new" or popular as the books previously posted and may not be as much in demand or WishListed here.

Members are seeing them, your current books are getting the same exposure that your first books did, have no fears on that regard.  You are not doing anything "wrong" to cause the slowed response in getting orders.

Here are just a couple of ideas you can use to promote your bookshelf: 

1) You can look up books that are WishListed here and then find some inexpensive copies locally to pick up for posting here.  Posting WishListed books is an almost foolproof way to generate an order and many members place orders for additional books from a bookshelf when ordering a WL book.

2) You can "advertise" that you have multiple books of a particular series on your bookshelf  (such as your Pony Pals books) in the Book Bazaar or a genre-specific discussion forum (such as the Children's Books or Young Adult forum).

3) You can offer a "Bookshelf" deal to promote interest and drum up traffic to your bookshelf, by offering books at a discount: 2 books for 1 credit or even deeper discounts.  Members here can get quite creative in thinking up deal offers: I've seen deals such as 10 pounds of books for XX credits, as many books as fit into a specific  sized box for XX credits, 2/1, 3/1, 4/1, 5/1 deals.  Browse through the Book Bazaar discussion forum for a bit to see the kinds of deals that other members are offering.

4) Look for a Game in the Games forums that features the kinds of books you have available, and you can use the game to send out your book and in return get a new-to-you book to read in its place.

Personally, I just post my "unpopular" non-WL books to my bookshelf and let them sit there until they get ordered.  It may take some time, but usually I will have get even books that have hundreds of copies in the system get ordered. The longer they are listed, the higher up in the FIFO sendout line the books move.  Eventually, the books move up to the #1 Sendout spot and get ordered.

Thanks for all of your answers! They are all incrediby helpful. I guess the ones that I had posted earlier were newer which is probalby why they moved so quickly. I mention on some of the threads that I psoted some books, like the Pony Pal ones for sure! Thanks for the tips and I'll be sure to be patient and hope they move.

And to help encourage you, when someone requests one of your books they have the opportunity to view your Shelf to hopefully find books they might be interested in - AND even if a book has a lot of copies in the system and you may be #50 or #100 there's still a chance you could have that book chosen. It's happened to me many times when I thought a high-count book would stay on my shelf forever. Your book is in the right place and the right time for someone who's wanted it but never got around to getting a copy.

Patience is definitely a virtue here, and you just never know when a book will be requested - you have to be optimistic and patient.

Gail

Ellen,

One thing that I found effective at first was-  ask everyone you know if they have any unwanted books you could have for your new club. You will be so surprised to see that people are more than happy to pass along books. The more you post and the greater the variety, the more orders you will get. Another idea , something fun---- go to the Community tab along the top on the PBS homepage and click on the Spread The Word dropdown. I printed out a bunch of bookmarks, fliers, and posters with those tear off slips along the bottom to give out. Don't get discouraged! Let your enthusiasm for reading show and it will all come together. Another thing I found really surprising was the huge variety of books that are wish listed. Type in the ISBN# in the check for book box in the upper right and it will show you the book info and if it is a WL item. Books that I didn't care about were wanted by many others. Shocking! My WL is for what I want or need, my bookshelf holds anything and everything anyone else might want. (that I can get my hands on, anyway!) Good luck and have fun. Happy reading...