I am very new to bookswap  so I was eager to jump right in.  I work  weekends so when I had my days off in the middle of the week I responded to requests.  I mailed requests today  (8 books)   so that  people wouldnn't  have to wait until my next day off.  But  tonight after work I found a new request, it happens to be from someone I JUST mailed a book to this morning!.  I could have saved  $2  by mailing them together.   and this month  every  $2 is important.    I found that very irritating.  I wish the person had told me to wait to mail until they had the next credit.... maybe they didn'tsee my book shelf.....  what do you think?    do you  pm folks and ask fi they would like another book by the same author?  -before you mail? 

Welcome to PBS Diane! 

Mailing multiples is great for saving postage, so sorry the timing missed on this one    IME not many members request additional books (very few seem to check), especially if the first one was FIFO. So you probably will not have this same situation arise again.   I rarely pm a requester...maybe if I have another book in the series, or if I notice I have more books on their wishlist that I'm ready to post. 

It is courteous to pm ahead before posting multiples to another member, some people don't keep many credits on hand and having me post 2 or 3 directly to their wishlist can be a problem.

Hi Diane,

I agree that it would have been nice if the person had let you know that she was ordering another book from your shelf -- especially if she ordered directly from your bookshelf.

Another thing that could have happened was that she ordered what was, to her, a random book she found on PBS.  And by some extreme coincidence your book ended up being first in the "FIFO" (first in first out) for that book.  The extreme coincidence being that you had just mailed that same person another book.  Stranger things have happened here! 

And welcome to PBS!  This site is a wonderful place and think you will ultimately be happy that you joined.

Deb

edited to add:  To answer your question, I don't typically PM a person to see if they want something else from my shelf.  But if you do wish to do that, I advise adding something like this in the PM, otherwise the mailing-date could arrive without their response:  "If I don't hear back from you by xx day, I will assume you are not interested and will mail the book that you ordered."

In my opinion, most people would not welcome an PM when they request a book from you asking if they are going to request another one. Many people would not even read the message. I have sent out nearly 3700 books in the last nearly 5 years and I have had what you describe happen only once...yes, I found it irritating too, but most people, if they want another book from you will check out your bookshelf when they are making their first request. I agree that odds are the person who requested the 2nd book several days later was probably going through FIFO and it was just a coincidence that you got the request.

Just acccept that the second book was just going to a member and don't get hung up on the coincidence!

And welcome to PBS! As of next week I will have been a member for 5 years and it has totally changed my reading habits and I have met some great people here. Life would not be the same to me without PBS!

Welcome to PBS!

Yes, I can understand your frustration. When I receive a request, I always look at the person's WL. Occasionally, I've found that I have a book or two listed. That's the only case in which I will PM beforehand, asking (politely, I hope) if the requestor would like me to send the additional book(s) and to please let me know by a certain date (2-3 days), otherwise I will mail the book ordered.

Another possiblity--the orderer could have ordered the second book from another member who failed to respond prior to ordering anything from you.  Then when the first request timed out the system automatically sent the request to you as the next person in the FIFO line.  Don't know how likely this is, but if that's the case, tge requestor certainly wouldn't have wanted to order the book from you, because she thought someone else was already sending it to her.

Yes, frustrating. I actually had a person add two books to their order an hour after I printed the postage and wrapped their original order. But, what can you do? Just treat it like another book order and send it off. A credit is a credit.

I was actually on the other end of that one time. An audiobook was posted to my WL.  I didn'[t see anything else I wanted on their bookshelf (or maybe I didn't get around to looking-if the wrapper is printed right away then the order more from member button goes away as well.  Maybe a week later, I order an audibook from FIFO adn it's the same person.  So either I wasn't able to look at their booksehlf before they printed the label or maybe they posted that 2nd book afterwards-don't know. 

I have also posted and mailed a WL book to a buddy only to have them request one of my books from a virtual box or win one in a game.  So that I ended up sending the same person a book 2wks in a row. 

I typically order books by regular FIFO, and very rarely look at a specific person's bookshelf to find more...I don't really pay attention to who I'm ordering from, just send the request. When I order a book it's generally JUST that book I want at that time...and if some days later I want another book and order it FIFO and it happens to come from the same person, it's just the luck of the draw as far as I'm concerned and I probably would not even notice unless it was called to my attention.

Cheryl