I joined a day ago and poasted 10 books as instructed to get started, but already 5 of them are requested to go out. If all ten go, thats $30 in shipping in a budget not expected this. Mean while nothing on my badly want list has been found here, though I settled for two.

 Is it cheaper to mail myself or print here?

Do I have to accept them all right now? Next payday is not till the 15th....

I feel like I got in over my head!

Welcome, Kim!  I think this happens to a lot of new members.

You don't have to send them all - ideally you would of course bcs that's in the agreement when you signed up but why stress yourself or your budget?   The rules are one thing but the reality is another - you didn't know you'd get all those requests right away.    Why not just send out two or three of the books, and cancel the other two requests explaining that you are overwhelmed with requests, and are putting your shelf on hold temporarily and will take it off hold and repost these books when you have postage money.  Then do that.  The Vacation Hold link is at the top of your Bookshelf.

When i joined every book I posted was on a Wish List - I posted in clumps though, like 5 and then 2 more and then 2 more, that kind of thing, so I didn't freak (postage was cheaper then too - $1.48 or something to send a book, ah the good old days).  It took a long time for me to request my first book - just couldn't decide what I wanted to spend a precious credit on.  Then I discovered the Wish List.   LOL hundreds of books later, finding books to spend a credit on is not a problem anymore. 

It's cheaper to mail yourself with stamps/metered postage if you have a PO close by - there is a postage printing fee for printing postage here.  I print postage bcs it is so convenient, but it does cost 43 cents more a package ( plus 18 cents for DC - but I always used DC before printed postage was available here).

Don't worry, this swap works great - just stick to posting  2 or 3 books at a time, whatever you can afford to send, and you won't be stuck in this position of having to decline requests again.  Your budget comes first - sending books to others comes later.  But of course you should repost those books you can't send now later...

Edited bcs OP's name changed.

Technically, theoretically, you might be able to make it to payday without canceling.  If you haven't already accepted the requests, you should have five days to say whether or not you can mail the books.  Then, after saying so, you'd have another five days (plus a two day grace period) in which to mail them, which would bring you to payday and beyond. 

Liese's post was a perfect response, though, if what I said is wrong or doesn't make sense (it barely makes sense to me lol).  Once you get the hang of things you'll find yourself wishing you were facing this scenario more often! 

Welcome to the Swap!!

I think many new members have this happen.  It seems like a sudden feeding frenzy.  If postage is that high and your budget can't take it, then do as Liese suggested.  When a new member sets up their booksshelf it's an influx of new books to the system and there are people already waiting in line.  So be happy about that because it won't last.  You'll get on some WL's yourself and start getting some of them pretty soon.  Then all of a sudden you have a huge pile of books to be read (TBR list).  And your books will slow down in requests per week.  There are more than 50,000 members here and that's a lot of people wanting books, but it is also a lot of books that they bring with them. Most books have a high turn over rate  and it doesn't take all that much time to get to the top of the WL for a book.  You might also explore the different ways of doing searches since sometimes all the versions of a book have different ISBN's and some aren't listed correctly so won't be found by the normal search.  Try looking under the author's name, and sometimes the search has it as listed wrongly under the middle inital being the first letter in the author's last name.

There are other ways as well.  Do go to the bottom of a book's description page and check to see if there are other different HC's or PB's listed. Today I got offered a book that was a different ISBN from the 2 I had on my WL and I didn't know it existed!   So there are at least 3 different ISBN's for that one book and it doesn't count the HC's that book has.

There are so many books on PBS that I'm sure you can find a couple to request while waiting for WL books.

Welcome to PBS, and I hope you like it here as well as I do.  It's a great place with great people.

Ruth

Thank you all for the help!

 It is going to be a hard year, no new books! My husband and I are joining the Compact. Nothing new for year that is not food, health, safety, and so no new books. What a hard thing this shall be for me! LOL I am really counting on moving a lot of my beloved books here so I will be well stocked with reading this year! I am not used to waiting for books beyond when they come and having them on hold for me already. hehehe I have been spoiled really. This shall be an adventure!

 So I moved some budget money around and got some PBS money for postage, I think it will be ok as long as no one else wants anything I have till payday!

The waiting is really hard at the beginning- but eventually you get somewhat of a rythm of books moving in and out and build up a TBR pile and you aren't standing by the mailbox with that pathetic hopeful look on your face every day!

Happy trading!

Sara

Start building up your WL and you'll start getting books.  You only have 19 on there.  Get browsing and add some books.  The more you have on your WL the more likely the WL offers will start coming.  And dont' be afraid of those long WL lines.  Unless the book is really hard to find or expensive, you'll keep moving up the line.

Another suggestion if money is tight, put your list (except the wish list and do that as an automatic) on VACATION HOLD - not regular hold, but VACATION HOLD for a couple of days.  This will keep your books in the FIFO order, but you won't get any requests for books until you take it off.  Pat

 My list is now on vacation hold till the 15th, pay day! Thank you all for the advice, I should have done this last night as I woke up to my 6th book needin to go out. I have to laugh because I think this must mean I have good taste in books right? :) All those credits for me to spend will be great too! First book for here got mailed today! hehehehe

Also, try putting all the books you'd like to post here on your TBR list.  That's a holding list for what you're still going to read.  You post by ISBN, just like posting to your shelf.  Then, you can look at that list and see the big red or green W's next to books.  Those are books on someone else's Wish List (green is on automatic request and red is not). 

Then, when you do want to post books, you pull up your TBR pile and it's one click to the Post This Book page.  That way, you can post the stuff on WL slowly so that you can budget out your postage money.  Anything without the W next to it is already posted into the system and would be safe to move over to your bookshelf without it being requested right away.