There are some books that number in the thousands for a title.  If you keep looking, though, you will see that there are many others of which there are only one or two.  It doesn't help when you have the books with so many already posted...but you could offer a deal of a free one of those with the order of another book from your shelf.  Be sure to say which books can be the freebies.  Welcome to PBS.  I love PBS!

Ruth

The big name best sellars are usually highly wanted when new.  Then high numbers left over.  Some books seem to get snatched as soon as they are posted.  Cookbooks, craft pattern books, erotica, large print, small speciality press, some young adult, and out of print books.  You can go to the link "Top 50" under Community to see the top 50 most wished for books.    It took me a couple of weeks before I knew what books are in demand.

I found that even if you have the only copy on the system - it still may not move depending up on the topic.

I agree with Emily - stay away from the james pattersons, daniell steel, nora roberts, unless you have their latest book that is WL.  I found that romance, paranormal and scifi move pretty quickly off the shelf - (stay away from the harliquin romance -- 198 pages or less size). 

However, I found that some of my books with large counts have moved -mostly from someone ordering directly from my bookshelf or they ordred another book and also selected another book from my shelf which was a book with a high count.  Don't get discouraged.

You could offer a deal on the book bazaar - 2/1 or 3/2  (2 books for 1 credit or 3 books for 2 credits).  It is the only place you can offer this type of deal.  If you have a signature you could also list the deal in your sig.  To fill in your bookshelf - becasue selection is always good - go to a FOL sale and pick up a few books of different genre....but research like the Top 50 or visit the genre forums and look at what members are looking for..that should help with your quest.  I have many new authors when I first joined because I picked them up to fill in the shelf - ended up reading them, liking them and then ordering more.  Never stops :)

Welcome to PBS - it is addictive in more ways than you can count!

It depends on the book, too. I posted "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" - there were 300 copies of the book in the system at the time. It got requested in less than 3 months.

OTOH, "Interview with the Vampire" has about 600 copies, and mine's been posted over a year.

And Anne Tyler's "Searching for Caleb" has been on my shelf over a year - 2 copies in the system.

I have had a few that have been on my shelf for a year get ordered in the past couple of weeks...all at one time..lol.. I agree the Book Bazaar is great.

I've had a couple of books requested  lately that have had over 300 in the system and no way was it requested FIFO as I haven't been a member that long.  I'm assuming someone looked at my bookshelf because of a post and saw something they liked and ordered directly from me.  I was thrilled to have them moved off my bookshelf though, not complaining at all! My son and I love this site!

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The Book Bazar and posting on the forums are a good way to get noticed.  Otherwise its a game of patience! 

Being active on the forums and posting WL books also helps.  I have my heavily posted books move pretty quickly.  Many times it's because I've posted a WL book and they used the Order More From Member button. Many times it's from other forum regulars.  I know it's becuase people know I'm here alot and it won't itme out on 10 different people before it gets accepted. 

Also Box of Books is great if you have a lot heavily posted books.  I've traded a lot of them that way as well. Granted I got heavily posted books in place of them. But they are books I haven't read yet and want to read and I didn't have to spend a credit on them.

I'd rather order from someone on the forums than a "stranger".  I have two WL books that are going to time out tonight, darn it.  One waited until the last day to accept and now it'll time out tonight.  The other did almost the same, just a day different.  Sigh, sigh.

It works both ways.

A member posted a WL book of mine this week, so i decided to look at her WL to see whether we had similar tastes, in case she is on the WL for a book on my TBR pile. The very first book on her list was a reference book that I had bought, looked at, and not opened in a while; I'd never considered swapping it, think I might go back to it again at some point. System said there were 12 on list for that book, so I posted it to her WL (not knowing where she was in that line).

It is good to get into the forums and games and what not to get your name recognized. Sometimes the frequent posters get more people checking out their shelves.

It's also nice to request from and post to members that are active in the Forums...beats waiting for transactions to time out several times :-)

Welcome Lee!!

I am getting a really cool welcome from everybody.....Thanks so much!!