I posted a lot of books this weekend, and they all were WL books (books having a short to long waiting list). I am a gold member, and I thought I read it would get me the nearest copy if I chose a book. Is that true, and does it work the other way?  Will it always select the person who is #1 on the list, or will it select #16 who lives across town from me (and more to the point, lower postal $$ for me)?

It would explain a lot. It seems I will stay at #1 for a long time while members trade amongst themselves below me, or maybe this is going on.

Tracy

BTW -- I sent out 10 (3 waiting) because I am tired of waiting for the lines to move, and I am starting a one-person effort to get things moving. Thank you.   

Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West WL=149

Overcoming ADHD: Helping Your Child Become Calm, Engaged, and Focused--Without a Pill (Merloyd Lawrence Book) WL=7

Operation Jedburgh : D-Day and America's First Shadow War WL=1

City of Bones (Mortal Instruments, Bk 1) WL=135

Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath  WL=1

Trio of Seduction (Seduction, Bk 3) WL=16

The Virgin Suicides WL=2

Ghostly Menage WL = Cleared the 1/1!!

Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 (P.S.) WL=3

Beautiful Creatures (Beautiful Creatures, Bk 1) WL= 8

Chickens In Your Backyard : A Beginner's Guide WL=14

Sweet Persuasion (Sweet, Bk 2)  WL=95

Dare to Love WL=17

Yes, if a Gold Key member, your request for a book goes to the sender who lives closest if multiple copies are available. Directed delivery does not come into play when you, as the Gold Key member, are sending books. Furthermore, distance does not affect postal rates (for first-class or media mail) -- so sending a book to someone who lives closer does not cost less than sending to someone who lives across the country or even  outside the country at an APO or FPO address.

I didn't know that. It seems that when requesting a rate I always have to give so much information , I just thought it was pertinent. Thanks.

Tracy

I would hope gold key would not bump people out of order on the WL.  If I'm number #1 on the WL, I would hope I'd really BE #1 for the next book offered FIFO.  

The Gold Key only affects the WL for the book if one of the people on your PBS friends list happens to have that book on their WL and you choose to post it them.  If none of your friends has it on their WL then it goes to FIFO and is offered to the first person in line. 

Even before the Gold Key option, people traded WL books amongst their friends and non-gold key members most likely still do that.  The Gold Key just makes it easier to do that because it saves you having to search friends WL.  It can also make it easier to ship in multiples because you can just start the posting process of several books and see if anyone pops up more than once.  But I think most people sign up for the Gold Key for the extra 100 wish list spots.

I think you are mixing some of the features of the Gold Key membership. If you request a book with multiple copies in the system, then it will select the copy that it estimates will get to you the fastest (not necessarily the closest if someone who is farther and higher up the FIFO line ships faster). If you post a Wish List book, you will be able to send it to any of your Friends who are wishing for it, or it will go to the first person in line for it. It doesn't vary from the Wish List line for anything but the sender selecting a Friend on Wish List books.

Also, unless you are sending books by a higher rate class than you need to, it doesn't cost any more to send books no matter where you are sending them to. Media Mail (FC for small books) costs the same whether you send it 2 streets over or to Hawaii.

It does trouble me how long it takes to get a book off of the WL even when line is moving. I can be in the
top 4 and see two copies go out last week and I'm still fourth. Then another week goes by -- two copies went 
out last week and I'm still fourth.

I realized then that there is a lot of trading on the forums, trading friend-to-friend, Goodreads friend trading
that affect the WL line moving and while that is legal and good, it can be frustrating to new Jane-user,
who might think there is something underhanded going on. I know they think this, I read the negative reviews 
PBS receives elsewhere. 

The most expensive books, the ones you paid $$ for are the ones most likely to trade to a friend. But it
looks like a lot of trades are happening without the place in line moving up on some popular titles.

Just some things to think about. I'm frustrated about my WL line. BY my calculation, 
98% are never coming off.

Tracy--

Just want to point out--another reason why you might not move up on the WL as fast as it seems like you should.  I'm sure there are many people like me--I have several books on my WL that I have on hold.  I've reached #1 on a lot of the books I have on hold.  When my wish is on hold, it isn't shown in the count.  Then when I decide I want one of the books I have on hold, I take the hold off and everyone behind me is bumped back a position.

There are a couple that were recently  offered -- one accepted and one in the mail. That is why they are "on hold". They will go off hold when I mark they arrived.

Tracy -- it seems that you may have misunderstood what Laura said (wrote). Some folks put WL books on hold for a variety of reasons. They may not have a lot of credits and so are prioritizing or waiting for credits; they may be waiting until they read/receive an earlier installment in a series; they may not be sure they want to spend a credit on the book but get in the WL line just in case; they may be waiting to see if they can get a copy from their library or a friend; or whatever. As long as these folks are in the WL line, they will continue to move up the line but they are not counted; when they take the hold off, everyone behind them gets bumped down one position. 

What you are referring to are books that are active transactions. They're not "on hold" -- they're just waiting to be marked received. You are no longer in the WL line or FIFO line once your request has been accepted. If the book for which you are waiting goes lost or is a problem, you could go back to the number 1 position depending on the circumstances (which then bumps everyone else down).

I'm sorry you've been frustrated with WL lines though I suspect there are fewer trades among friends than you think. The reality is that some lines move slowly and others move quickly and you may have ended up in more than your share of slow lines!

Ya there are proabably bazzar and private trades that have circumvented you, but probably not as many as you think. Like Tammy, I use Wish list hold. A lot. There must be 15 or 20 books on my wl holding at #1. A lot of them are like #5 or #6 in a series and I still need the books that come before. That way I don't tie up a lot of credits for books I know I am not going to read for a long time. Or I need to hold onto credits for more interesting books that are due to come in soon. When I take these books off hold I push everyone back.

And...more experienced members will know for sure. But I believe that when someone puts their account on vacation hold it works the same way. Traditionally a lot of PBSers put their accounts on vacation hold durring the winter holidays. I put my account on vacation hold 3 or 4 times a year for a variety of reasons, ie I'm slammed with work, or out of postage, or sick or laid up. recently I had to go onto account hold because of a system crash.

I'm sorry you are unhappy, this is a really good place to trade.

If you put your account on Vacation Hold, it does not affect your WL books that you have on auto-request.  You will still be offered the book and the system will automatically order it for you if you have credits available.  You'd have to put your WL books on hold individually if you don't want them offered to you while on Vacation Hold.

People can't post stuff to you directly while you're on Vacation Hold but if you come up in the FIFO line, you'll get your WL book.

Tracy, you've got a very interesting assortment of books on your WL, many of which are non-fiction.  I would guess WLs move slower for non-fiction than fiction.  When I receive a fiction book, I read it and pass it along.  When I receive a non-fiction book, I usually don't read it as quickly and often hang onto it for awhile or indefinitely in case I need/want to reference it.

Patience is the name of the game for a positive experience at PBS.  You're smart to fill your WL with a wide variety of books.  Now I recommend you sit back, enjoy a good book and don't check your WL positions every day.  Be happy when a WL book comes your way rather than getting frustrated when it doesn't.

Tracy,

I understand where you're coming from about the WL lines moving slow at times. 

My way of helping move the lines along is by posting free books I receive through publishers by winning them through Goodreads First Reads! 

Also, offering WL books in the Book Bazaar instead of posting them FIFO may seem unfair, but it's allowed. A lot of people do that to try to save as much money as possible on postage. That's why I always keep my eye out on those threads!!

I haven't been offered a WL book in ages. All my years at PBS I've averaged between 3-6 books a month, but over the last month or two things have slowed to an absolute crawl. It's too early to tell if this is an aberration or a trend. We shall see.

I also do the individual hold thing on books in series and or that I might be able to get at the library.  If my library only has 1 copy of a WL book, I might join the line in both places and then put it on hold here when I get near the top if I think I will get the library copy soon. 

In the last 2 years, I have gone from mostly a fiction WL to mostly non-fiction and my WL has drastically slowed down since then.  I used to get 5-10 WL offers a month even which much of my WL on hold and now I get a WL book every couple of months. 

I currently have 84 books on my Wish List on Hold (meaning I am not accepting offers on them at this time, but I keep my place in line). On 51 of those 84 I am in the top 4, most in the 1st spot so if I took my Hold off I would get the offer despite someone else having thought they would get the first offer because of my Hold status moments before.

Now remember there are hundreds of thousands of members. Every one of them affecting the WL lines with orders, Holds, Problems Swaps, members failing to mail. Watching your WL spot every single day is and exercise in frustration because you will see the effects of the fluctuations more. The place and estimate are more for an "over time" look than a day-to-day monitoring. When they implemented the individual Hold feature on the Wish List a few years ago and the Not Now button it really made that more so.

I have been weeding things off of my WL. Some are books I finally bought or borrowed through interlibrary loan. 

A lot of books, especially non-fiction, show up on my list as NEVER having been sent and that is always a bummer. I've been around the block here for a few years, so II know to play the waiting game. I know to wait years for the good ones and sometimes the surprises come. But is is so hard for me to take that book off the shelf if it is a good one and send it back out. 

I don't hold anything but thanks for that autorelease feature. I will use that. 

Time to go and resort. I can't afford more postage -- sending four more out today for a total of fourteen this week. looking for next month's bundle out of my hoard, and trying to make them count. I can't keep all the books, but I do like the pretty hardback ones.  Oh! I got one in the mail. My husband ordered up a fantasy paperback I could have found back at the Blind Society.

Sometimes those impossible to find books DO come up on the WL line.

A year or so back my mother was looking for a certain book on basketmaking.  Small press, short run so it wasn't in print.  The cheapest used copy we could find online was almost $100 and we just couldn't afford that.  I decided to put it on my WL here because you never know.  I was #2 on the list.  About 4 months later, I was thrilled when the book was posted even though it looked like it never had been posted before.  I sent the sender the biggest thankyou and told her how Mom never thought she'd get this book ever.  The sender knew perfectly well what the book was worth but decided to send it out via PBS to make someone's day.  And she certainly did.

Great story!

That made my day just hearing about it! I had one come up that was a lost cause too but I can't
remember which. I try to gift an extra credit when something especially nice arrives (I have 
credits coming out of my ears).

Tracy

If you have lots of credits, there's no shame in not posting wish list books for a while until you can use up some credits. I only keep about 5-10 credits on hand.  When I use a few, I post a few WL books.  I have 9 credits now and 3 pending and I probably won't post another wish list book until I get down to 5 or 6 credits because I'm already over my comfort limit in how much money I want tied up here.  I will probably put my shelf on vacation too although there isn't much on it at this point.

See Mary, I was thinking like that, but then I realized that the book Karma fairy was going to bite me in the butt. These books are really my giving the book tree a good 'ol shake, and hoping some might fall on me.

Maybe I'll mail some of these to me.

Tracy

Just finished The Middlesteins  and Traffic

Rereading The Long Walk

Those are great Caviglia! I have some bayou girls to turn on to your stuff.  I just finished
Agatha Christie's Secret Diaries if you have a larger interest in Christie. I have a art
colored pencil sketch of a fjord zombie in my bedroom from a reputable Fjord artist
(horse Fjord) that we did some computer work fork. Reluctantly she drew Maddy
and I a Zombie Fjord in a cemetery and confessed she's had some misgivings.

But Zombie Mermaid! I may have to expand my collection.