To people who still don't undersrand ISBN's   I posted a WL book which has a lot of people wishing for a book with the incorrect ISBN.    I really was surprised at the number of incorrect ISBN's listed for the same book.  Just thought I would mention this.

Huh??? A book can have many, many ISBNs and an ISBN for a book can be assigned to multiple bindings. How are people wishing for books with an incorrect ISBN?

Delores, as Melanie said, books are often published with more than one ISBN, there are different bindings, multiple versions of audios, plus other publishers or even the same publishers often republish them and assign a new ISBN to the new edition. So, they are not WL'ng the WRONG ISBN, just a DIFFERENT ISBN than what may be posted. And they may have a very specific reason for doing so, or they may not know there is another available.

It is always good to search by title when wishing for a book, but by ISBN when checking to see if your book is being wished for. Hope this all makes sense to you now.

BTW: There is a monthly topic here in the Bazaar dedicated to people drawing attention to their own WL books with different ISBNs that people have watched, and check often to see if they find something good :)

I understand the thought about the ISBNs.  I have several WL books on my list but different ISBNs. PBS says that all books are sent to the WishListers regardless of ISBN and they have the option of taking a different one. I'm not sure if this happens like it is explained because I have never had one of my WL books with a different ISBN selected (they are either still on my shelf or I took them to my local used bookstore)...

Kristin

Kristin, only books that have the wishlisted ISBN goes to the WL line. An e-mail is sent to wishers that a similar book has been posted, but many people have that feature turned off or they only want the ISBN they have WLed.

I have several Joanne Fluke books on my wishlist, but I only want the hardcovers.  If a paperback is posted into the system, I get an email saying a book similar to my WL book has been posted, am I interested?  But they make it clear that the book is NOT being held for me.  I like this feature, because some of the books I'm wishing for, I don't care what binding they have.  And I don't have to try and find every different ISBN to put them all on my WL.

If it were a WRONG ISBN, nothing would come up when you try to post the book or a completely different book would come up. All the book listed in PBS have real ISBNs.

I can't help but wonder if she means there were a number of people wishing for a book with a short ISBN. I have seen that a couple of times. I also know there have been posts to explain to people that short ISBN's are made up for one poster and will not be reused - but not everyone reads the boards.

It would be nice if the system blocked the ability to WL books with short ISBN's to avoid the confusion.

I guess the moral of the story is check your wishlist occasionally and see if your book has come up in another type.  I had a book on my shelf, a very strange one, and someone wanted a different ISBN of it.  I mentioned it in the Book Bazaar, but no response.  Finally it was ordered, I think the wisher found it. 

If only there were a way to alert wishers that another type of the book they want is available.  I realize the system wants to protect people from unwanted messages, but it would be nice if people who don't look at the BB could be encouraged to do so to check on wishlist books, especially those with no ISBNs.  Any thoughts?

ISBN numbers aren't just different for different bindings either. Sometimes a trade paperback or MMPB will have several ISBN #'s. I found a copy of The Russian Concubine sitting on someone's shelf. It just happened to be an oddball ISBN # with no wishlisters - it was a trade paperback.  I snapped it up in a hurry because I've wanted to read it for awhile.  Right now one ISBN # for this same trade paperback has 83 wishlisters. And if anyone is interested there is only one other paperback in the system and the ISBN # for this book has ONE wishlister on it. 

So yep, like another poster said, periodically go through your wishlist - type in the name of the book in the search engine and see what comes up. You might be surprised because even wishlisting them all doesn't find the books posted after you wishlisted.