I just joined today and I posted a bunch of books by Fern Michaels, Nora Roberts, some Julie Garwood and others. I still have to go through the rest of my books to list them all.

I am trying to see how this all works, I see some of you offering 2 for 3 and to sell credits. Can someone explain this to me? I just like to read, but can't afford to keep buying new books. All of my books are in excellent condition.

Kim

Hi Kim, welcome to PBS.

I enjoy reading and am trying to offset the cost of my addiction to books buy swapping them here.  It has worked really well for me.  Of course my TBR pile has skyrocketed to over 200 books that I really need to thin out!!

Anyway, sometimes people will offer a deal.  This is usually done in the Book Bazaar forum.  The L&R forum does have a thread that is called Post Deals and Show Off Your Shelf Here where you can list your deal or find other member's deals.  A deal is whatever you are willing to trade such as 2 for 1, 5 for 2, etc.  The person would look at your bookshelf and order a book and you agree to pull and send for free the "freebies" included with the deal you offer along with the book they ordered from you.  I have received lots of good books this way. 

Hope this helps and again welcome to PBS. 

welcome! yep, there's a thread, usually on the first page somewhere, where you can post deals or ask to check out your shelf, etc. there's also a 'is this book on your wishlist' thread where i fyou have a book that's wishlisted and want to offer it here you can post then when someone pm's you you can go to their wishlist andpost to them. there's also  thread 'is this book on your bookshelf' where if you're looking for a non-wishlist book or adeal onnon-wishlist books you can post asking if anyone here has the books...I  like ordering from the people on this forum since I 'know' them. you can't always find what you're lookin for but a lot of times you can! A lot of books sometimes have a bunch in the system and it can take a while to get through so often people offer deals like 2/1 or 5/2 or sometimes 3/1...1 credit doesn't cover much shipping but 2 credits can usually cover quite afew books' shipping together.

otherwise the book bazaar is the place to post deals.

If you read romance check out some of the t hreads..the 'guss the book' thread and weekly 'what we're reading' threads are great ways to beef up your wishllist and increase your orders..not much mentioned that I don't end up wanting!

Hi Kim,

Welcome! I thought I'd just give my input. People often offer deals for a variety of reasons. They could be moving and need to thin out their libraries. They could have books on their wishlist come up and need credits in order to request them. Or they could just want to move the books on their shelves, particularly if there are a lot of those same books already in the system.

People sell credits often through paypal if they've built up a lot and need to get rid of some. I am not sure why this would be the case, but sometimes for financial reasons people do this. Often the credits are cheaper to buy from a person than it would be to purchase additional credits from the PBS store.

Given the authors you've listed, unless you have some hard to find, out of print, wishlisted titles, you might benefit from giving your shelf some exposure and offering a deal. There are a lot of Fern Michaels, Nora Roberts, Julie Garwood titles in the system and according to the first in, first out (FIFO) rule, you'll be way down the list for certain titles.

I think you'll find that even if you purchase credits in order to request books you want, you should experience a lot of savings.

Anyway, if you have questions you can ask a tour guide or go to live help or the help section or the forums, or any myriad of places. I know PBS can seem intimidating at first, but that's because there's a lot to it! So feel free to explore and most people are very nice. I think the romance forum is one of the more welcoming places, so come on in.

Edited to add that if you do offer a deal, you should read the guidelines in the Book Bazaar. Basically you start a new topic with your deal and then list in your post the parameters of that deal. For example if you are doing a 2 for 1, 3 for 1, 5 for 2, etc. Also if you have a different deal for certain materials like audiobooks or hardcovers or are only offering a deal for a certain genre, like romances or mysteries. There are a ton of deals in the Book Bazaar all the time so try and come up with a title for your thread that will attract some interest. Some people offer crazy deals to get attention, like 8 for 1 Come Get It! Or something like that. Also, it is good to specify how long your deal is going, like through Friday or whatever. Most people then will PM you and also reply to your post if they take advantage of your deal. You should watch your PMs because you might get duplicate requests, so first PM should get the book. Sometimes you have to do some behind the scenes negotiating if this happens and people often request an alternate book. Hope that helps. In the romance forum, please confine your deals to the Post Deals thread. We don't like the actual content of the forum to get bogged down in deal offers.

Hi.  I'm new here, too.  I joined to find random books instead of buying them new or on Ebay.  I can see already this is going to be ugly.  :)   I'm entirely a romance reader, so this forum is going to be great for me to get info.  Nobody else I know reads them but me.  Just wanted to say hi to all and can't wait to get to know everyone!

Kim

Welcome to both Kim's... from another Kim:P  If you guys are going to participate in very many book discussions - which we do have a lot of on this forum for you to participate in - you should go into your account settings and put your deals into your forum signature.  That way, wherever you post, people can automatically see your deals.  And I think too, it's always better to decide on what the best deal you're willing & able to offer is, and then put that in your sig and in the Post Your Deals thread.  And you can change & update that as often as you like.  I know some of us opt for the "make me an offer" or "open to deals" type of ad, and that's fine, but some people are a little shy about asking sometimes too.  Having something definite, where they know all they have to do is order a book or 2 and then inbox you with bonus book selections, is so much easier & more user friendly than having to ask for a deal.

Some helpful tips if you decide to offer a deal....

Post the deal in the Book Bazaar Thread

Ask them to post a response to the thread and ALSO to PM you.

The posted response show the rest of the viewers what has been requested so that they don't order the same books

The PM to you alerts you that they are requested a deal, in case you had not looked at your post recently to see responses.

The sooner you can take the "extra" books folks requested off your shelf, the less chance you have of a random person ordering a book that someone has requested as the unofficial part of a deal.

When you are finished with the deal..  you can go back to your original deal post and click Edit Post and change the title to Done or Finished.. or something like that so that folks know your deal is over.

Everyone else offered good advice, so I'll just say... Welcome!