Hi I just joined today :) When I joined it asked me to  add 10 books which I did, not knowing the rules. As soon as I posted all of them my copy of Kristin Hannah's FireFly was already waitlisted. I didnt see that it said they must be in "Good condition" until after this happened. I loaned this book to my Mother a couple weeks ago and its a little worn looking now (it was perfect before). This is the ONLY book I have in less that almost perfect condition. The cover's corners are bent a little and there are 3 small tears on the back cover. Is this acceptable? It doesnt look bad but it doesnt really look new either. Im sure it says what is acceptable somewhere on this website but I just havent found it yet. Thanks for your help!

Book Condition Critera

That should help you figure out if it meets the guidelines or not.

Welcome!

It isnt water damaged but it does have noticable tears on back cover and the front cover's corners are bent along with some of the first few page's corners. Im thinking I should just PM this person and tell them it is in average condition and see if they still want it. I just dont want to send it and have someone be unhappy with it.

i did read the link, but I still am not sure lol sorry

I decided to just PM her and tell her about the damage, if she doesnt accept it ill just take it off of pbs I suppose.

Hi,

Welcome to PBS!

Books do not have to look new to be postable here. Bent covers and/or pages are perfectly acceptable. Rips in the cover are also permitted as long as the total amount ripped is not more than 1 inch. Rips in pages are not allowed.

Your book sounds postable to me, although you will have to eyeball the rips and see if they meet the 1 inch rule or not.

If your book is postable, then there is no need to PM anybody who requests it first. It is not expected. It can lead to issues like ... I PM'd about this issue but the book is postable, the requestor hasn't answered my PM ... now what should I do? Do I mail it anyway because it is postable? Should I not mail because they haven't answered my PM? Etc.

Some PBS members do advocate PMing first, and it wouldn't hurt if the book has some flaw that is not covered in the rules (grey area) ... but as to books that are postable, there is no need.

When people want to receive books that are in "better than PBS postable" condition, they will put a "Requestor Condition" (RC) on their account (or their book request) and this will explain their special condition requests. Common RCs involve not wanting to recieve books from smoking homes (without a RC, books that smell like smoke are completely postable to PBS), or wanting to receive hardcovers that have a dustjacket (without a RC, hardcovers are not required to have a dust jacket at all). If you receive a request with a RC, you will certainly know it, they are impossible to overlook, you will have to click buttons to accept the RC before you mail your book.

I agree, it sounds like the book is postable unless the tears in the back cover are more than one inch.  While the majority of the books I get on the site are in very very good condition I do also get books that have been read by a lot of people, and those are also postable.  I have also received a couple of books that are postable, but I decided that I would be the last person to post them because of the wear and tear they had sustained, and that's fine with me, too. 

Welcome to PBS!  I hope you enjoy it here as much as I do!

What they said!   Welcome to PBS Erica!!

As an aside, I would tape over the tears in the back cover so that they don't catch on something and become bigger tears.