What's the story on Member Appreciation Books?  I noticed this today on the home page for the first time ...

Congratulations! You have qualified for a NEW Free Member Appreciation Book (with 1 Book Credit + $3.45 Shipping and Handling). You can order this book for yourself or give it as a gift to someone else at no extra charge! Book quantities are limited. Orders are filled on a first-come, first-served basis, so please order quickly to avoid being disappointed.

Hi Valerie,

More information about the Member Appreciation program will be in your PBS Newsletter.  If you haven't gotten it already, you should sometime in the next 24 hours.

You can also search for "MAB" in the Help Center to read the details.

I would try to sum it up, but the Team member who writes the Help Center topics does it so much better than I could. :)

Thanks for bringing this up!  This thread made me go and check it out.  I just ordered 4 MABs -- new books -- for 4 credits plus a little over $6 in shipping/handling costs.

Thanks for all the info - I just ordered 3 WL books for a total of $10 (including shipping) and 3 credits!  Thank you PBS!

How exactly does 1 credit + postage = free?

The PBS Market is usually one credit plus a reduced price for a book plus shipping. So they are offering the books without needing to pay the reduced fee part.

The MAB books that have shown up on the home screen for me have all been available via FIFO, so if I wanted them I could order them FIFO without having to pay S&H.

Some of mine are available FIFO.   I got one anyway -- wanted a new book for a gift.

I think this will be good for some people, it's just not for me.

I noticed the MAB also by my name so I spent a long time going through all the books. As was pointed out, most I can get FIFO so paying a credit plus incredibly inflated shipping at $3.45 is not my idea of "free" or a good deal. Nothing was on my WL either ... that I could tell. Maybe if a coveted trade or hardback book comes up on the list from my WL it would be something I would use but I probably won't bother to go search through all those books to see if it's there. 

I agree with you Susan.  I was quite excited that I qualified for a FREE New Member Appreciation book, but was disappointed that it wasn't actually free.       1 credit + $3.45 shipping does not equal FREE.  Yes, it's cheap and can be a good deal on some of the WL books.  However, I think to call the book FREE the only cost should be shipping.  The whole thing felt rather misleading to me.

If you want to buy book in new condition then this is a great deal.   I spent a total of $6.42 for shipping for 4 paperback books.  2 will be Christmas gifts and 2 will replace keepers on my book shelf.  I believe one was a wishlisted book and the others were available via FIFO.  At this moment it is a holiday program, but if there is enough interest they may be able to keep offering MAB books. From the help docs.

Are MABs just a holiday program?

• We hope not!  We're launching it as a Christmas/Chanukah present, but depending on member response, we may be able to continue offering MABs indefinitely.
• That means that each MAB you snag will increase the likelihood that the program will continue!

If you were buying from the market place it would cost you a credit, cash and shipping.   Instead, I am only paying with a credit and shipping.  So it depends upon what you want.  It is also another way to support the site.  

I ordered 4 books as well but they were all wishlisted.

Okay, Kudo's for the idea!

However, out of the more than 7500 books listed, only 13 come up in a Mystery/Thriller search and only 11 come up in a Science Fiction-Fantasy search.

Pretty slim pickins.  Don't think I'll be using this service.

-RD

The genre thing seems to be way off.  It brought up 33 in romance and then a good chunk of those weren't even romance books.

If you go to your WL and sort by PBS Marketplace, you can see if any of your WL books are MAB books.  If they ship from the same place then 1st book is #.45 and additional ones are .99.  I put 5 in my cart (2 were 2.29 + a credit) and it came out to $11.99.  Not bad but when I factor in the 5 credits it worked out to like $5.50 per book.  Not a bad deal but I don't need any of these for gifts (the wouldn't arrive for Christmas anyway) and I am fairly close to the top of the WL on all of them.

I will keep an eye on it though. 

I would be more likely to use if they figured out a way to show only WL books that are MAB books. I would not order one that was available from a member.

How do you know if any of the books on your WL are MAB books? I didn't see any on my list that stated they were, so maybe none are, or I'm just not knowing how to do it. I'm guessing that there will be a button or something that says MAB?

When I ordered books it charged my cc more than the amount in my cart.

My cart said $6.49 for 4 books, but my cc was charged $9.85.

I put a message into tptb.

You have to sort it show marketplace books on top and then just look at how much they are charging.  I had 3 show up as 0.00 + 1 credit.

Just a note: the genre searches seem to work a LOT better when you put in a subgenre as well.  I got many more results using Comics and Graphic Novels>>Graphic Novels (subgenre) than just Comics and Graphic Novels genre.  Same with Science Fiction: more and better results when I added subgenres: Science Fiction>>Science Fiction and Science Fiction>>Fantasy.

Anyone else having a problem with nothing showing up in their cart from the MAB list?

I've already contacted TPTB, so waiting on an answer. But any book I want from the MAB list says it's being put into my cart but when I look it says my cart is empty. I can put Marketplace books in the cart, but no MAB ones.

Also, on my wishlist there's book that says $0 and postage from the PBS Market. I select on it and it never shows up in the cart, when the other Marketplace selections do.

I'm using Mozilla Firefox, latest version AFAIK, and haven't been having trouble with anything else.

Interesting....

If you request a book from me and I ask for postage from you. I get an infamous "black mark"

But TPTB can not only charge postage, but also call it FREE!

Ah, the perks of ownership...or as a parent would say to a child "Do as I say, not as I do"

wc

If you request a book from me and I ask for postage from you. I get an infamous "black mark"

Since they're not offering used books through the membership FIFO, it's kind of useless to compare the business site with the trade site. People who don't like the Marketplace or the MAB site are free not to ever go there. Where the whole purpose of the Membership site IS PBS. When it comes to member trades, people who want to charge extra for postage need to be shown the door. I have no problem with that at all.

As long as PBS can keep the business seperate from the member-offered books, I don't see a problem or a conflict. They're working with vendors that own the books, and get a cut of the order. They don't actually own the books themselves. They're just the gateway for them like they are for Amazon purchases.

I do think they need to be more thoughtful in how they word things. The credits are not 'free', and they clearly have a value. They need to be careful and not mislead people.

My only concern at the moment is that the ones I do have an interest in won't show up in my cart!  But firt run gliches aren't new to any business, so I'll see if they can fix that for me.

I must be more tired that I realize... I've read the MAB help topic and understand the concept, but how do I find the MAB page to browse? The help doc referred to the rotating slideshow on the homepage, but I didn't have luck finding it. Or is MAB offered to PBS users randomly? Stumped that I'm stumped about something so seemingly simple.