I have a set of 20 books that is on another member's wish list.  each book has it's own ISBN so I could list then a few at a time so that I don't get whacked with a huge shipping charge.................

..BUT I want to fufill a wish! 

Questions

What is the best way to go about it? 

It is not OK to contact the person before hand I realize.  Do I list the books as a whole anyway?

Do I get 20 credits if I do it this way? (I really want 20 credits..but then I am fufilling a wish....)

What about the shipping...If I do send the set to one person is it OK to ask if I could send the books in groups so that I won't get hit all at once? 

Thank you! Brenda

If the book as a set has an ISBN, if you post if as the set you will only get one credit. If each book has a ISBN and you post it that way, you will get credits for all the books. From what you're saying it sounds as if the person has the set wished for--and if they do, you would only get one credit for those 20 books. You could check to see if the books are wished for individually also.

My deciding factor was getting the 20 credits.  I can list the books either way apparently.  There  1 ISBN # for entire set and individual ISBN's for each book.  

A few of the books are on wish lists so I'll be granting a wish that way.  

I could also list the first 4 or 5 and hope that the person that wants the entire set gets them AND has 20 available credits.  What are the chances of that?  

Thanks!  Brenda 

Brenda, if the object is to fulfill wishes for a specific person, you'll have to post the books directly to their WL anyway, because they'll go into the FIFO system & anything this person isn't in the #1 position for is going to be offered to whoever is.  What you will have to do is pull up their WL, find your book on there & post it.  The system will then prompt you like it does every time you post a book, but look for the notation that you are posting it to the person you want to have it.  Don't click on the book title while you're looking at their WL either, or it will go into the system FIFO that way as well.  If every book has an ISBN & is on your friend's WL, you'll get a credit for each one she accepts.  If she declines any of them (like if she doesn't have enough credits for all of them & doesn't accept all of the offers) those will go into the FIFO queue and be offered to the first person in line.

Brenda - there is a new thread in the Bazaar for this type of situation - sending a group of WLed books together to save on shipping. You could list the set there and see if anyone is willing to take them all. Typically you do have to post them directly to their WL and I am not sure that someone will agree to wait if you don't want to send them all at once ( I wouldn't recommend that anyway, it is way less postage to send all together). The thread is by sherryladen. I'll see if I can get a link.

Book Bazaar Wish List Items........ save on shipping

I'm not sure about the shipping.  I once ordered 28 books from one person and they then told me they wanted to send the books 3 or 4 at a time to save one large shipping cost and spread it out over many weeks.  I wasn't fine with that and I cancelled the order.  I can't see too many people being fine with it taking weeks to get a partial amount of books and then having to mark them received when you HAVEN'T received all of them.  Too risky in my opinion.  (I'm not sure if I ever would have received all of them.)

booklover, that was an absurd request on the other person's part (It's cheaper to send a big box of 28 books than it is to send 4 books seven times!!) but when you mark books in a bulk order received, you do so individually, so if one book out of 28 was RWAP, doesn't arrive, etc. your accounts reflect that.

To explain shipping, I think of it this way: the first pound is the most expensive.  If you're sending 28 books together, you only pay for that first pound once, but if you're only mailing 4 books at a time, you're paying for the first pound seven times.

Brenda,  if you know the identity of the member who has all 20 books on their WL, I would suggest you PM them and ask them if they are interested in a deal, and perhaps offer to wait until they have enough credits. Just be nice about it.

If you don't want to do that, try posting in the Book Bazaar thread that Melanie mentioned.

The goal is to mail all 20 in one package. Britney gave a very good explanation for why.

This is entirely up to you, but I would seriously consider offering a "discount" if someone takes the entire set. From the requestor's point of view, there is not too much incentive to order all 20 at once because (a) he/she might not have such a pile of credits sitting around  (b) it doesn't really matter to the requestor if 20 credits goes to one person or 20 different people. He/she is still spending one credit per book. However, if you offer the entire set for, say 15 credits, then there's an incentive to order the whole set at once because now each book only costs the requestor 3/4 of a credit. The amount of money you save by shipping one big package should be more than enough for you to buy those 5 credits from someone in the Book Bazaar (~$2.50 range).

just my 2 cents.

I checked the media mail rates, it's about $20 to ship all the books.  For 1 book that weight 1lb 8 oz it was almost $4. Definitely cheaper to mail all at once..............after xmas.  

I am so broke now that Santa might not get cookies here this year,  LOL

I wouldn't trust me either.  2o eggs in a basket with a fairly new member is hard.  

I only know that the set of books are on somebody's wishlist.

can I post it here...

Search wish list "stitch by stitch" Is there anyway to know who wishes the entire set?

 I''ve place the books on mt TBR list.  I'll go to the other list and post them when I can afford to ship them after christmas.   

I'm not sure where you got your rates at, Brenda, but a book of 1lb 8oz is only $2.77 media mail and if all 20 of the books weigh 1.5 lbs the total for all 20 is just over $14. At $2.77 x 20 mailed individually, you will spend $55.40

So, if I happened to be the person that wanted all 20 books, which I'm not and I don't even know what the books are :) I wouldn't be inclined to give you the full 20 credits since you will be saving a LOT of money over the individual prices. Just giving you another viewpoint and the corrected media mail costs.

Ahhh.  I thought from this: "I have a set of 20 books that is on another member's wish list." that you knew someone specifically that had all of them on their WL.  If you find someone who does, you'll still follow the same procedure if you're getting a credit for each of them, but if you're offering a discount, you can pull however many you're basically giving as "freebies" from the lot and don't post those, but add them into your package.  I usually write those titles down on the second page of the PBS wrapper, so the receiver knows what titles I put in there - in case there are any shipping mishaps & the package comes open.  This time of year is busy for the USPS, and things happen...  You might also check for a WL thread in whatever genre related forum your books fall into and post an offer there.  The Crafting forum, in this case.  If these are the books I'm thinking of, I have this set myself, and I don't think but a couple of them actually have a WL (and it's only like one or two wishers on the ones that do), there just aren't any copies already posted in the system.  If that's the case, you aren't likely to get any takers if you need 20 credits for all 20 of them.  I'd offer a discount too - a good one - just to clear all of them out at once.  On the ones that have 0 wishers, you may have to get your taker online pretty close to the time you post them to your shelf so they can order them before anyone else does.  A lot of people watch the "Recently Posted" lists, for sets like that to be posted, and could start ordering the ones that don't go on WL hold while your taker is in the middle of ordering.  I don't think that list updates immediately, so you'd have a *little* time to play with, but I'd still coordinate something with them & try to get it done quickly.   Or you could just post the ones on their WL directly to them, add the others in as freebies (and don't post them), and have them buddy the credit difference to you.  Obviously that relies on the honor system, but I have done that before with someone I "knew" from the L&R forum for a lot of Georgette Heyer books, where several really old ones didn't have ISBN#s.  I think I had a dozen books & I posted about 3 of them that did have ISBN#s to the receiver's WL, she buddied me 3 credits, and I mailed her the entire set - so she got them 2 books for 1 credit.  Basically, I just wanted to get rid of these books, preferably all at once, and it would have been a big hassle because most of them were so old they didn't have ISBN#s.  This requires some mutual trust though, so if you frequent the Crafting forum, you may want to find the appropriate thread & do it there.

Good to know!  Now where is that crafting forum?  

I just love PBS and everyone here!

I think I added the fee for tracking and maybe rounded up a little much?  LOL  

I checked the USPS site for the price.  I usually print from my Paypal acccount so the price is less than the USPS site since tracking is less.

Here's the link to the crafters forum, Brenda: Crafting

I don't see a WL thread, but there's a sticky post at the top for bookshelf deals. I should say too, a lot of the people who frequent genre related forums are persnickety about posting book offers in new posts; they like to keep everything tidy & book offers in the appropriate threads. Not sure how to tell you to do the ones that have any wishers without there being a thread there for WL offers, but I wouldn't think there would be any problems with you posting & asking if there is one there. I don't get the impression it's a really active forum, so there may be one and it has just dropped off of the first page.

I wouldn't be inclined to give you the full 20 credits since you will be saving a LOT of money over the individual prices.

I have to admit I had this same thought, too.  If they can all be sent to one person, then I'd offer a deal....so *both* people can save.  The sender saves a ton on shipping and the requestor saves a few credits by ordering all at once....it's a win/win.