I have a question. It has probably been asked before. I have a bunch of unpostable books. I did post them on the message board in the unpostables section but my question is cal you offer the unpostable books for free even if they are water damaged, stained, or in really really rough condition but still readable? I have a few that are coming apart but still intact.

What is horrible is that I have about 180 books in my TBR pile that are in very postable condition, most are like new but I dont want to post them out of fear of getting complaints. Most of the books in my TBR pile are also on wishlists.

But anyways I was just wondering about unpostables and if they had to be in certain conditions or does anything go with unpostables that you are giving away for free?

Damage, stains, bad condition, etc.  are the reasons the books are unpostable.  Anyone ordering them would know that, and would have no reason to object to them when they receive them.  Besides, they haven't paid a point, and obviously shouldn't plan to repost them since they already know they are unpostable.

i don't understand your other comment about the TBR books that are very postable.  Why don't you want to post them?

I dont want to post them because they are my sons books and he doesnt always read them in such a nice way. Sometimes he may bend a page to remind himself what page he is on or he may bend the cover. He has also written his name in some of them so basically I dont feel comfortable posting them because I paid a lot of money for them and would not want to get screwed out of credits because the books arent what people expect.

if his name is written on the inside cover that is ok.  If he is bending the page in half to mark his spot, probably not.  if he is just bending the corner that should be ok.  perhaps buy him a nice bookmark to use?

the upside is that you can accept an order and if there is any question, email the person and ask them (you can only do this after you accept the order) to make sure it is ok before sending

Leslie, no offense, but when did no bent pages become a condition? Even if it's the whole page, if it's not torn, it's still fine.

Bent covers are also not a problem, a small 1" tear is even within the guidelines. As long as he didn't take it out and run over it with the car, it's probably postable. Go to your local used bookstore, and glance thru their shelves. Most of them are fairly decent in only accepting for their regular shelves books that are still in fairly decent shape, and you can get a feel for what a used book is like.

The books swapped on here are used, and all that comes with that. The occasional bent cover, the occasional bent page, a few wrinkles here or there in DJ, some yellowing to the pages, creases on the outside of the spine from being read, even some scuffing off of the coloring to the outside from being held. That's all part of used, and is expected. If someone wants more than that, they will have requestor conditions stating that they want only books in excellent condition or something like that.

Having said that, I don't mean to imply that if the book is so used that it is hardly holding together and might fall apart with the next reading, THEN maybe you shouldn't post it, and should offer it as an incentive, but otherwise, your books are probably fine :)

Yep, what Sherry said!!  And I'm sure she said it much better than I could have...  :-)

Everything Sherry said AND you should still get your credit. People are required to mark the book as received, with a problem and you get your credit. If they ask for it back for some nit-picky higher than PBS standards thing that wasn't in their conditions (that you will see before you accept the order) then you do not have to give the credit back. 

Don't be scared. I haven't had a single complaint.  I've had a few that I decided were in tougher shape than I had thought when I was wrapping so I offered them free with another book to the requester. I think in every instance the person PM'd me that they would have accepted the book for a credit. The forum can make it look kind of scary with some of the complaints, but most people here understand it is a used book site and they will receive a used book.