I bought a nice paperback edition of Eat, Pray, Love at a thrift store yesterday and posted it a little before noon. One day and three hours later, the request has gone through 7 wishlists -- the number requesting it has dropped from 467 to 460. I'll be very curious to see what the wishlist number is when the book is finally accepted by someone. ;-)

Pam

I know you would think with a long WL it would be snapped up right away. But those beginning people probably put it on their WL when they first joined PBS and then just abandoned their account. 

I only recently discovered The Thirteenth Tale.  I saw that it had 268 people on WL here so I just went ahead and ordered it from Amazon.  I'm guessing it'll go through several people before it gets picked up.  But maybe I'll get lucky. 

ETA: at least it's not timing out on these people and they are cancelling.  Probably forgot to delete it when they broke down and bought it for themselves.

ETA: at least it's not timing out on these people and they are cancelling.

Yes, that's one good thing. One person apparently had it set to automatically order the book, but from the time I saw the email from PBS that I had an order, to when I tried to accept it, that order had been cancelled. Just as well. I'd rather not have sent it to someone who didn't really want it.

About The Thirteenth Tale, I had that one on wishlist for what seemed like forever, but finally received a paperback copy just a few months ago. It was well worth waiting for. I'm still on the hardback list because I'd like to have one to keep.

Pam

I'm a little more than halfway through The Thirteenth Tale right now and am totally absorbed.  In fact, I probably wouldn't even be online except that I'm doing laundry and keep walking past the computer that my husband left on.  Pam, I completely understand why you want a copy to keep.  I broke down and checked it out from the library but will probably keep it on my wishlist anyway.  It reminds me a lot of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, which I also couldn't bear to put down.

Regarding the cancellations, I agree: it's much nicer to have wishlisters decline an offer than to have it time out repeatedly.

Karen

It reminds me a lot of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, which I also couldn't bear to put down.

Rebecca's a long-time favorite of mine, too. I have a hardback that looks nice on the shelf, but the copy I've read time and again is a little paperback edition that is so old it cost only fifty cents new.

The Eat, Pray, Love wishlist is down to 459, and mine is still waiting to be claimed. ;-)

Pam

457

456

452

Poor Pam.

The longest I had one go through was 6 people. But it's really not surprising on a WL so long. I'm expecting the same thing on The Thirteenth Tale.

I'm halfway through it, and if it weren't a book group book, I'd post it to someone's wish list tomorrow :-)  Because, no, I'm not loving it.  anyway....

If someone is dying for it, PM me please - I should be through with it by the weekend  If you PM me, I'll know you'll accept!

Pam, you should add this to my FIFO tracking thread! :)

Hope it gets picked up soon, though. What a hassle. :(

Sorry for the hassle, Pam.  I am (currently) number 136 on the wishlist for that book but doubt (hope) you won't get that far!

Success! The book has finally been accepted. Just checked and there are now 445 members wishing for this book, so my copy whittled down the list by about 22 people. At this rate, Pattie, you should get a copy very soon. ;-)

I'm not familiar with the FIFO tracking thread, Jane, but I'll take a look later to see about adding some information about this trade. 

Fun, fun.

Pam

Pam, it's the WL FIFO Results Thread. :)

Pam, just a bit of a sticking point....when you posted Eat, Pray, Love, were you watching continually that the time/date on your posted book was changing as people cancelled? I ask because cancelled or timed out WL books no longer appear in the Transaction Archive so unless you noted the 'date/time of request' changing as each person cancelled it, you can't be sure simply by watching the number of people wishing for a book that it was solely your copy that whittled the list down by 22...there are many other ways that the number of people wishing for a book could drop in addition to people cancelling on YOUR particular copy...this is a very popular book, and thus it's quite likely that the system is dealing with any number of posted copies at any given time:

• People simply deleted it from their list because they no longer wanted it, bought it themelves, etc.
• Other people posted the book into the system--some people accepted the book, and others like yours were turned down, or had timed out during the time frame you had your copy posted.
• People put their accounts on vacation hold thus decreasing the number of members wishing.

Cheryl

I recd both the HB and PB versions of The Thirteenth Tale last last year within a week or two of each other.  I forgot to remove it from my WL when I got the first one (HB).  I immediately reposted the PB and it was taken by the first in line!  I was thinking I was going to repost the HB when I was done, but it is a keeper!!

jackie

Good point, Cheryl. 

We were curious when we saw this topic, and concerned about such a high number of Wish List cancellations, so we looked "behind the scenes" and found that actually only 2 wishers declined Pamela's offered copy.  The first wisher had it on auto-request, as Pamela noted, and then canceled the automatically-submitted request. The second wisher canceled in about the 18th hour, and the third wisher snapped it up.

With such big wish lists for popular books there is a lot of activity going on all the time--other copies being posted, members deleting items, putting their accounts on hold, as Cheryl mentioned.  So the other "whittling" of this Wish List was done by regular system activity.  Maybe some members read your topic, Pamela, and this reminded them to take the book off their Wish Lists if they had already gotten it elsewhere, so don't think that your effect on this process was minimal!  (Also maybe some added this book to their Wish Lists after reading your topic.)

Wish Lists can move very fast for popular books.  Multiple copies of this particular ISBN (and many others) are being posted into the system every day.  In the 44 hours that Pamela's copy was available to Wishing members before being requested, about a dozen other copies were posted (and requested by Wishing members).   So don't let those big long Wish Lists scare you all.  :)

Love the extra info -- thanks!

I wondered if something like that wasn't going on.  Thanks PNS Team!

Huh, that's funny. I posted the hardcover of Eat, Pray, Love not long ago and it was snapped right up on the first request!

On the other hand, It's Perfectly Normal (sex/puberty for kids/teens) went through three wishers before it was taken. Maybe those people waited so long that their kids already grew up!