A person messaged me about doing a deal on multiple books.  I thought that was not allowed.  I have asked for more info because I'm curious to see what they really want me to do.    I don't want to break any rules, and this has never happened before.  Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Book deals usually take place in  The Book Bazaar forum but members can ask for deals.  The following is  a quote from the How To Use This Forum thread in the Book Bazaar:

(5) If a member asks you for a deal and you haven't offered one, this is not considered rude; it is also not considered rude to refuse. This kind of thing should be handled politely, without hard feelings on either side.

It's entirely up to you to decide if you'd like to accept or decline the proposal.

Usually the deals are like " 5 for 2 " . In this case the member orders 2 books from you. You then wrap all 5 books and mail. Just remember to remove the other 3 books from your shelf so no one else tries to order them later. This is a good way to move the older, more common, books.

The only deals that are prohibited is taking (or asking) for more than 1 credit per book - usually the idea is to jump a long wishlist line.

The number of books in a deal can vary and is something that you both agree on.  I've done deals for 3 for 2, 4 for 2, etc. 

Besides saving on postage, the books chosen for deals have often been books with lots of copies in the system and/or books I've had on my shelf for a year or two.  Sometimes I have stipulated that I'll do a deal if the total weight of all the books requested comes to the same or less if I had of mailed out all the books separately.  The thinner (less weighty) the books, the bigger quantity of books per credit I've been willing to do.

It's always up to you whether or not you want to agree to a deal with someone.  If you don't want to do deals, just reply with something like, "I'm sorry, but I'm not doing deals at this time."

As far as keeping track of books being sent in a deal, use mail to friend and use the address as the book ordered for credit. Just change the weight to the combined weight if you use printable postage (or even if you don't, it will show you the MM price). In fact, the system will remove the books from your shelf, it will also list the books together on the mailing insert slip and the books will also show up in your transaction archive.

Thank you for all your replies.  This helps greatly.  I had never encountered this before.

Yes , deals are allowed, whatever you feel comfortable with. I always offer deals on my shelf.

most of the deals I have done have been 2 books by the same author for 1 credit.

I will always offer a 2/1   or 5/2

Here's a link to the Book Bazaar. The top several threads colored in red and stuck to the top will answer any question you have better than I could. I love to do multiple deals and recommend them. Great way to get orders moving on your shelf. I generally stick with orders of 2 or more on multiple deals so that the cost of postage to mail the package is sure to be less than the going rate for the number of credits on the order. Offering more than one book for one credit will sometimes be more costly depending on the book. Dig?