I have requested a book and waited for an answer in the meantime I have sent out 3 books.  Why are members not responding?

Members have 5 days to respond to a book request.

If the first member does not respond, then after 5 days, the request will be automatically passed on to the next member with the book available. No need for you to do anything about it.

FYI,

Here is a list of deadlines associated with the PBS swapping process:

• A sender has 5 days to respond to a request.
  • After accepting a request by clicking "I can mail in the next 2 days", a sender has 5 days to mark the book mailed. The deadline is at the end of the fifth day.
  
  
  • After accepting a request by clicking "I can mail later" and choosing an alternate mailing date, a sender has 2 days beyond the alternate mailing date to mark the book mailed. The deadline is at the end of the second day.
• A requestor has 48 hours to respond to an offer of a book from her Wish List.
• A book has 26 days from the "mailed" date to get to its destination within the contiguous US before it is declared "lost in the mail" at PBS.
• A book sent outside the contiguous US (AK, HI, GU, VI, PR, APO/FPO/DPO, etc)  has 35 days from the "mailed' date to get to its destination.

You've only been here 3 days.  Give people a chance. Not everyone can come on everyday and some people wait a few days to accept requests.

Welcome to PBS!

As others have mentioned the sender has 5 days to respond to a request for a book.  If they don't respond, that book will be taken off of their shelves around 3 am on the day following the 5th day (or after the 5th day) and your request moves to the next person in line.  After enough missed requests, an account is put on hold by TPTB.  As hard as it is to wait, that wait is doing something, and if you cancel and request again, you're just starting the 5 days again with the same person because that book is at the head of the FIFO (First In First Out) line.

One thing that you learn on this site is patience.  

Some members plan when they respond to orders based on when they can go to the post office.  Many POs have extremely limited hours these days.

I have to plan when to accept books because I can't always afford postage.  I have a request pending 

right now for a huge novel.  I have the date/time I must respond by entered on Google calendar,

which is where I post all my required mailing dates.  Great program.

Welcome to PBS Darlene!

I usually accept requests within 24 hours and mail within 48 hours.  But once in a while RL is just crazy busy.  During those times, I might let the request set for a bit longer until I'm sure I'll be in a position to mail within the necessary time frame.   It's just a way PBS provides to manage our mailing schedules.

Remember Darlene, no worries & patience is a good PBS quality.  Even if this transaction times out, the book will automatically be requested for you from the next member offering the book!

Patience

-RD