Requests have dried up lately so I posted on the Bazaar for the first time today offering deals. 

Would you mind giving me your tips just once more on how to earn more credits?  And do you notice that  posting in the Bazaar can take a few days or longer to get results?

Thanks for your input.

I always have a stash of WL books in my TBR so I just read some of those when I need credits. 

 I would give it a few days in the book bazaar.  You can bump your post once a day.  I would also put the deal in my signature and start hanging out in the forums. I had better luck when I just put a deal in my signature then when I did one in the book bazaar.  The BB posts get pushed down so fast and you can only bump them once a day.  But the signature thing only works if you post a lot.

Thanks, Mary.  Just updated my siggy.  :)

You can also consult the Help Center document called "How to get your books requested!" for additional tips and ideas. 

Also, you do have books on your shelf without cover photos and/or descriptions, so adding these can really help "sell" items on your shelf, as well as helping PBS by adding that info to the collective database.  Details are in the Help Center under "If the information on a book listing in the database is incorrect..." and "If the book cover image on a listing in the database is wrong..."

Yes, your info/covers are missing rather than "wrong", but the procedure is the same.

If you are open to deals, it also doesn't hurt to post a note to that effect in your profile and in the "public header" section of your bookshelf.

Thanks, Elizabeth, for the tip.  I can't find the article you're talking about.  I know it's there somewhere but I'll be darned if I can find it.  Can you direct me further?

Thanks.

Sue

ETA: How do I get something in the Public Header of my bookshelf?

Also, some of the books on your shelf are missing either genre or description information. You should definitely try to add those...people searching by genre won't see those books on your shelf, and a lot of people won't take the extra step of going to Amazon or elsewhere to look for information about the content of the book either.

Good luck!

Ok.  I think I get it now.  Thanks.  I've started adding descriptions and submitting them for approval.  Learn something new every day.  : )

How do I know (short of checking my shelf) if the data information has been accepted?  Do they send PM's or emails?

I have added covers to my books in the past but did not receive any notification that the submission was approved. I did receive a friendly PM saying one submission was rejected because I forgot to crop the background out.

You can add a "personal note" to the books that you submitted revisions. Then a yellow sticky would appear over the image of the book cover so you can easily pick out the books on your shelf that need to be checked.

To access your public header, go to "My Bookshelf" On the upper left side of the screen, there should be a gray button labelled "Edit my public header" which is under the "My account" tab. To see it as others would (for proof - reading) you can click on "View my public bookshelf" 

Hope this helps.

Looks like Sophia has you covered on the public header...

For the Help Center documents I mentioned, click on "Help Center" (at the top of your screen) and in the search box enter the word "database" (without the " marks); it will bring up a list of options and the ones I mentioned on updating your shelf are in that list.  Search for "how to get requested" (again, without the " marks) to bring up the tips for your shelf.

You won't get a message if your data or image is approved -- you either need to check periodically or just go on faith.  The approvers do try to notify folks when something is not approved, so no news is usually good news. ;-)  The approvers are all trained volunteer PBS members, so it can sometimes take a couple of days for the updates to get looked at, depending on how much stuff there is to approve, etc.

Thank you, Sophia, Jodi, Mary and Elizabeth, for that information.  I posted on the public header of my bookshelf and started today to submit data for a few of the books.  I'll continue that as I get time.  I don't know how to do all the book covers.  That feels like its over my head.  I'll let that go for now.

I appreciate everybody's help.  As soon as I can get more books, I'm going to post again.  Maybe that will stimulate the requests.

You're welcome!

If you want to do book covers, there a Help Doc for it:

If the book cover image is incorrect for a listing in the database (the title/author shown are wrong), or there is no cover image, you can submit an image for this book to our Book Image Collection volunteers, as follows:

• Find a cover image for the book on another Internet database, or scan one in or take a digital photograph
  • The image must be less than 5 MB
  • The image must be in .jpg format
  • The image must be cropped to show only the book cover
  • The image can't be one that has "See inside!" (some images from Amazon.com have this)
• Scroll down to the bottom of any page on the site
• Click Member Tools
• Click "Upload Book Covers" on the Member Tools page
• Enter the ISBN for the book
• Browse your hard drive for the cover image
• Click to submit it
• The Image Approvers will usually approve images quickly.
  • If your image is not approved, it might have been too fuzzy or in the wrong format or not properly cropped
  • The Image Approvers will often replace your image with a better one when your submission comes in.

If the book cover image on a listing matches the author and title but doesn't happen to match YOUR copy of the book that has that ISBN:

• This image does not need to be replaced.
• Cover images do NOT have to match the book being listed, because sometimes publishers reprint using the same ISBN but a different cover art.
• ISBN, author, title and booktype must match when you Post a book; cover image does not have to match.

Hi Susan,

I looked at your post in the bazaar. I always recommend putting some of the type of books you have on your shelf in the subject.  Only if I have loads of time will I look through ones that doen't list a genre I'm interested in.  You had a nice description in your post but people have to decide to open it to see your genre descriptions.

Hope you get some orders soon.

Nancy

Hi, Nancy.  I appreciate your help.  I don't know if I'm doing this right or not (lol) but I wrote the different types of books in my opening post.  Then I went back and re-wrote my subject line.  Not much of a grabber but I don't know what to write there.  It's not just mostly one genre.  It's several. 

I've signed up for my.freecycle.org to ask for some free books that people might otherwise throw out.  I can't request anything until Sunday when I reach my 2 weeks of membership.  I'm hoping that if I get some new books on the shelf, it might stimulate more requests and credits.

Well...it's all worth a try. :)