I have an astonishing 646 credits.  The number of credits I have far exceed the number of books on my WL shelf.

Question:  what's the best way to whittle down the number of credits?  I have tried selling them but no luck there.

I donate a pile to the schools during the holidays.  I also work with organizations that gets books to military families and the soldiers currently deployed, but folks are somewhat reluctant to mail to APO addresses.  

Any teachers out there who could use some books/credits?  Any suggestions would be appreciated.  Please feel free to PM me with any questions or suggestions.

Thanks!

You may want to check out the suggestions made to Pat in this thread.

I sell credits from time to time. It takes a lot of persistence. Sometimes it takes a while to sell and sometimes they sell quickly.

I'm like Belinda and am probably the Pat referenced above. I love sending out books (I'm an enabler that way), but the credits pile up and are hard to get rid of. My DD is the Principal of a school so that helps. I've moved and don't have the access that I had to donating books, so always have an excess of credits. Pat

That means you have paid out almost $2000 more in mailing books than you have received. Now I know why so many members put themselves on a monthly postage budget.  I only keep 30 credits on hand....it can increase quickly so whenever I go over 30 I order some books for my daughters. 

I imagine if you donate them, particularly to the school donation program, that you may be able to write them off on your taxes. I have never investigated this. But they have a specific value.

I'd put my bookshelf on hold so that I didn't get anymore credits for a while.

I'm not sure when your standard membership is up but you can trade credits to another member and they can buy that for you.

I'd keep trying to sell some in the book bazaar. It might help to post more in the forums as I think members buy from those they are familiar with.

You could use your credits on the sister sites to get cds and dvds.

Umm, wow, that's a LOT of credits.  I struggle to keep more than 5.  It seems every time I acquire a couple more, I get a couple more books posted to my WL.

I would keep posting to try and sell some and donate to Books for Schools.

Know any teachers?  Ask them what kinds of books they could use for their classroom.

Start a Free Little Library and supply it with books ordered from PBS.

Years ago, I usually had 300 plus credits on hand. I sold some intermittently but that's much harder to do now.

These days, I'm only comfortable with having between 15 and 20 on hand. I keep my bookshelf on hold most of the time, keep my WL stacked at around 470 titles (all on auto request), donate credits to the school program and try to order books for DH and sometimes a friend and her grandson. I check the "Books Posted Today" feature pretty regularly and search that by genre.

I rarely make my bookshelf public as I mostly post wish listed books when I need a few credits.

If I was in your shoes I  would put my bookshelf on hold and just use up the credits by ordering books for schools or  nursing  homes .  I would not send out any more books, especially if you know that you will never get all the books you are wishing for.

I have about 65 credits give or take and will clean out my book shelf and donate books to the little free library in our favorite breakfast restaurant..

I am long term planning for my move back to Europe and have to pick and choose what to keep.

I have an astonishing 646 credits

Don't forget you can also use those credits on SwapA-DVD or SwapA-CD. I like to get TV seasons from when I was young. No commercials!

@Jeanne:  It's taken awhile to accumuate so many credits.  Thanks to Freecycle and living in NYC -- a large metropolitan city filled with readers -- explains why I have so many credits.  I am also fortunate in that I mail the majority of the books from my job, so I'm pretty sure I haven't spent $2000 on mailing books.  Thanks.

@Carol:  I also belong to swapacd (69 credits on there) and swapadvd (139 credits there).  Again, thanks to Freecycle and living in NYC, a lot of people post books, movies and cd's on Freecycle.  I have lots of WL'd movies/dvd's on swapadvd so that really helps when something posts to the system that's on my WL.  

@Angelika:  Great idea.  I donate books to two organizations that get books to military families and the men and women who are currently deployed.  I'll look into nursing home and schools as well.  And I appreciate the advice about not posting any more books until I can get this list down to a reasonable number!

In the past I've sent books to the Pine Ridge Reservation.  Haven't done it for a while, but they used to have a "Friends of Pine Ridge" website where teachers would put up requests for classroom books.  Now I use all my extra credits to help a friend who gives books to the Amish children in her area. 

That is a lot of credits! 

I had a couple extra one time and got really mad at this site and gave some away to a couple of people who were having a bad day.  Then my daughters school just opened so I asked the librarian what I could order for them, and did that.  Then I decided I was done with my hissy fit and just ordered a couple of books.  

Wow! If the price hadn’t gone up to $3 I’d buy a hundred of them! We homeschool 5 kids and used to fly through credits before the change.

Sometimes I go to the front page where they welcome the new members and I choose a new member and give them a few credits.  I remember when I was a new member and was so excited to spend my credits immediately upon receiving them.  I figure it is a win-win situation by keeping things in motion around here.  

You can search the available books here without signing in. You could offer up so many credits to your local VA and let the vets pick books you could then have sent to them there. I know a lot of the guys here really dig getting anything in print. I even managed to sucker a couple of total bada$$es into falling hook, line, and sinker for Eve Dallas. They're both BIG mystery fans. See? lol

Sometimes I go to the front page where they welcome the new members and I choose a new member and give them a few credits.  I remember when I was a new member and was so excited to spend my credits immediately upon receiving them.  I figure it is a win-win situation by keeping things in motion around here.  

This is a great idea. Nothing would have made me feel more warm and fuzzy when I first arrived than credits from Heaven. lol

I wish I had that many!  I have 0 right now and struggle to keep any.  I would do like the others have said.  Donate books, order some for yourself, and put your account on hold so you don't get anymore requests.

Try selling them on the sister sites as well. I've had more luck selling credits on SwapaDVD than here on PBS.

Well - if you've had them around for awhile then they may have gotten old and musty - might help if you have some new and fresh ones to offer.
Well - you're in luck!!! Today and tomorrow you can swap out those old and tired as well as musty/dusty old style book credits for some fresh and sparkly clean book credits -

I'll offer fresh as a daisy/sparkly clean credits for each two old musty/dusty if you are interested - just forward how ever many credits you would like to get rid of in batches of two's. For each two old and musty/dusty credits you send my way I'll return one fresh as a daisy credit back to you for your enjoyment! 

Tax and shipping/handeling fees do not apply....

Ask your local librarian for a list of books they would like and add them to your WL.  When I can no longer get books for them I ask for a new list.