Mailing books is getting so expensive. I just spent almost $3 to mail a book. I heard Walmart and Target are selling Bestsellers for about $8.

Does PBS or members have any thoughts on how we can lessen the cost to ship per book? I think this is a critical issue because some members are being priced out of the clubs because of the costs.

Very few people are currently ordering more than 1 book at a time lately and I don't have enough books to do the box program.

Should PBS create an incentive for people order more than 1 book from a swapper.  Are there other ideas?

In the recent survey, this was addressed.  They asked if people would be interested in a feature where if someone wanted to order more than one book at a time, the site would have the ability to find a shelf that had both.  So it seems they are thinking of solutions.

YMMV, but the sweeping majority of the books I receive from here are not paperbacks you can easily find for cheap, so it's very cost effective for me.

You must be mailing out heavy books.  I mailed out 5 books today including a bulky audio book and it only cost me $10 (not including the PBS DC fee for 2 of them). 

If you are mailing out WL books you could try waiting until you have several books to post and offer them in the genre forums.  I know in the Mystery/Thriller, Love/Romance and Paranormal boards there are threads going called Is This On Your WL-they start a new one every month. People post the WL books they want to send out to try and find people who want multiples.  Yes it bypasses FIFO but if money is tight and doing this helps someone mail out more books then it helps the lines move faster.  Plus the members who are active on the boards are small # compaired to the membership at large. 

That is a great idea for a new feature! I tend to order books from the same series, would be great if the system would track down a shelf that had multiples so I could order them from the same person.

You don't have to be a boxer to search boxer shelves.  So you could do it that way-search the author and check out boxer shelves-them PM to see if they would do a deal of some kind-or just order them all from that person.

I'm looking for 5 heavily posted books from the same series. I just posted in the genre forum what I'm looking for and for people to feel free to offer me a deal on them.  Someone could get rid of some heavily posted books for not much extra postage-and maybe I can get a 3 for 2 (or better) deal on them.

i'm curious -- you say you don't have enough books on your shelf to be a boxer, but i just checked and you have 200 books posted.  i only have 59, and i'm a boxer with relative success.

although, some of boxes of books i've been offered have been for just one book -- so sometimes that's just as expensive to mail out as a regular request.

i know a lot of people will budget a certain amount of money per month for postage, and once they hit that for the month, their shelf goes on hold until the next month.  that could be a possibility for you as well.

I do BOB trades quite often and rarely have more than 40 books posted.

I run multi-book offers in the Bazaar frequently, orders obtained that way are much more economic to mail. Mailing 5 very fat paperbacks will cost me $3.35 plus a box or bubble mailer, whereas mailing each individually would be $11.85 and five bubble mailers. (I use DC.) Granted, I don't get 5 credits for 5 books, but the time involved in shipping is also less, and I can turn over my books more quickly as well. 

I am also a boxer and I have had people just request one book from me!  I have a relatively small bookshelf compared to some so there is no reason you couldn't be a boxer too.  The other thing is that I tend to not look for more books when requesting from a member with a huge bookshelf.  Just a few days ago, I requested and book and the member has over 2000 books on their shelf.  It would take a LONG time to go through that shelf unless I knew in advance what I was looking for.  Your shelf would be much easier to scan and quicker.  Give boxing a consideration.  So far, it has worked out great for me.

Thank you for all the comments. I guess I believed that BOXERS were more for little paperbacks. Most of the books I have are hardcover or bigger paperbacks.

But I guess I can be a boxer too if I wanted. Thanks for letting me know.

One other hesitation I have is that I transfer some of my credits for Swapadvd and swapacd.   Can boxers do that easily?  I guess I have to swap book for book?

Before becoming a boxer I would search boxer shelves for some favorite authors and books you are looking for to see if people have books you would want. 

Being a boxer doesn't mean you won't get for credit orders.  You also don't have to accept any BOB offers made to you if they don't have anything you want. 

Boxing is really handy if you have a lot of heavily posted books.  I don't think I've ever had more than 50 books posted.  I did 3 BOB deals last week and 2 this week.  One deal last week was for audiobooks and 2 of my deals were for hardcovers. So you don't have to have a lot of books posted.  But I would check to see if any books/authors you are interested in are on boxer shelves first. Otherwise it's a waste of money if you can't use it.