If there is a certain book and there are like 15 people on the list who gets notified first?  Is the first person on the list notified and then if they don't respond within a couple of hours does the next person get notified?  Or are all people emailed all at once and the first person who responds gets it? 

Thanks,

Kay

THe person who WL'd it first. Then they have 48 hrs to respond before the offer goes to the next one.

The first person in line will be notified first.  If they have the book on Auto Request they don't need to do anything else. If the have auto request turned off, then they have 48 hours to respond if they want the book or not. If they do not respond, or decline the book the it will move on to the next person in line and the process repeats until it's accepted.

If there is a wishlist for the actual ISBN that is posted, the first person on the wishlist is notified.

However, if there is an ISBN that does NOT have a wishlist, that has matches the title of a ISBN that does, emails are sent out to notifying those on the wishlist that a similar book has been posted. In that case (if you don't care which ISBN of your title you get) first to grab it gets it. If you want only the exact ISBN you wishlisted, you can opt out of the "similar book" emails.

What if the people within a certain forum are trading Wish Listed books amongst themselves? How can the average member who doesn't have hours to spend looking over the forums ever hope to receive any books on their WL?

Most people don't spend hours on the forums.   I think most books are posted into FIFO.  Certain genres just move slow--and some individuals post those back and forth to each other, but that doesn't mean that most people are involved.

>What if the people within a certain forum are trading Wish Listed books amongst themselves?

Well, it depends just how it is being done.  Not a problem with unpostable copies, but the rules posted in the first sticky thread in the Book Bazaar sayeth "(6) No trying to jump the Wish List "line" by offering or asking for postable Wish Listed books.  Postable Wish Listed books should be posted and swapped "officially".  This of course does not apply to posts advertising an alternate ISBN  (or non-ISBN version) of a Wish Listed title; it is fine to advertise that you have those posted to your bookshelf.""    

So if you think that is what is going on, you could report it.

>How can the average member who doesn't have hours to spend looking over the forums ever hope to receive any books on their WL?

Because if nothing else, other members who also don't have hours to spend reading the forums will post them.   There are, at the moment I write this, 2,161 members online.  From the number of daily posts in the Book Bazaar forum, only a tiny percentage are active on the forum.

Well, this is the heading in the "Love & Romance" forum Is this on your Wishlist (WL) (#9)? and I although I scanned it very briefly it seems that members are trading books on that forum and only posting them if they are not taken. I saw a couple of titles being "advertised" that I have had on my WL for quite some time.

A bunch of the individual forums offer their books to each other first. It is very few people and since the site rules don't forbid it (only the Book Bazaar rules forbid it), I don't think there's much to be done. Most people are posting their WL books into the system so those small swaps between friends aren't really going affect the overal movement of the site's WL lines. In one of the forum's I watch, there is like 10 people that offer there first. They keep it to one thread and are mostly regulars. They could do it behind the scenes through the buddy list if they really wanted to. In that one it is isn't allowed to ask for any, just offers.

Yes, there are some members who trade among themselves in several of the genre forums. Their reasoning is that sometimes when you post a wishlisted book, you end up waiting and waiting and WAITING for someone to actually accept the request, and that if they can interact with someone on a forum who they know is active on PBS, they can get that book accepted and sent and get their credit much faster. I don't necessarily agree with that sentiment--I mostly use the FIFO sytem and I tend to think of the book cycling through a few people either ignoring the wishlisted books or declining them as me doing my part to shorten those wishlists that much faster. LOL I do have a couple of 'buddies' whose wishlists I always check before I post a book to see if they want it, but aside from that, I use FIFO.

Mary, if you want to, you can PM the person who mentioned the books you want in that forum and ask if they're taken yet.

Cheryl

See, that is the problem....I do not have hours to spend in the forums and unless you are online at the minute the book is offered, the WL books get swiped up and never make it into the PBS system. Here is one post as an example and the poster obviously knows it's a WL book because she states how many are waiting. I'm tired of mailing books (I have 46 credits) to these very same people who so obviously disregard anyone who can't/won't spend hours online waiting for a particular tbook o be put up for grabs outside of the FIFO system.

I have Into The Flame by Christina Dodd. TAKEN

First PM gets it. There are 161 wishers.

I wouldn't worry about it, Mary.  The # of members who are on the forums is a very small number compared to the total membership.   I am on the PBS forums all the time (way too much for my own good LOL), and yet I think that I have had a total of maybe five or six posted directly to my wishlists by friends over the past few years.  Yes, you get the occasional opportunity to snap up a "hot" book, but it doesn't happen as often as it might appear to you.

I've received eight wishlist books this past month. Onle ONE of those was posted directly to my wishlist by a PBS friend.

Mary I just checked out your WL and most of your books seem fairly recently added.  2008 anyway.  Although I know Jan was a long while back and seems forever when you have credits just sitting there. Anyway-Nauti Dreams was posted to my WL  and is enroute to me.  I'll check your WL first and post it to you if you haven't gotten it yet by the time I get it read-assuming it arrives in postable condition.  I have a ton of WL books in MT TBR but that's the only of yours that I have-or will have I should say. 

I sometimes post WL books to buddies and sometimes to FIFO.  If I have a bunch of books to mail out and want to get a WL in the mail at the same time-I'll try to find a regular forum poster to offer it to before I go to FIFO. Because many times I have posted books and have had it go through several people before it gets accepted.  So I might check that thread out if I have some WL books to post.  Usually if I have more than 1 and I'm hoping to find someone I can send more than to so I can save some postage.  But I would say 80% of my books go to FIFO.  Occassionally I have people offer to post books directly to me.  I have 5 coming from a fellow poster.  She's saving postage money and I'm getting 5 WL books.  With Nauti Dreams I worked my way up a long WL line. 

When I post a WL book to FIFO-I check their WL to see if I might have another book I can post to them.  Like today I posted a WL book. It was on autorequest and so it was requested after an hour.  I have 2 of her WL books in my TBR. I chose the last mail by date and PM'd her to offer one of the other books.  I don't think I'll have time to read both but maybe.

I'm a regular to the forums & I can say that maybe 5% of the WL books get traded through the forums. Most are FIFO. I like listing them through there because it's more reliable.

I prefer to offer my WL books to my forum friends first.  I know they'll have it on autorequest so I don't have to wait days and days for someone to respond.

PBS allows us to post books directly to someone's WL and it's my right to do so.  Having a thread on the Love & Romance forum actually saves me time from searching out every one of my buddies' WL to find someone wanting the book I have.  I work 40+ hours a week and don't have hours and hours to spend searching out buddies' WLs for one that'd like the book I have.

I do occasionally benefit from that thread also but sometimes someone beats me to that book.  Oh well, it'll come around again and I will eventually get a copy.  It's all about patience.

Never mind.

I'd have to say that people posting in forums the wishlisted books is not significant reason for the wait in wishlisted books. 

I actually read through the forums quite a bit - very seldom is a title offered more than once (which means maybe one person gets the book not through FIFO).  In addition most of the titles are newer books - not the hard to find ones. 

I think a bigger reason for some of the newer books is that a large number of members decide not to buy the book and wait to get it through PBS.  However before it gets in the system someone needs to actually get the book!

What if the people within a certain forum are trading Wish Listed books amongst themselves? How can the average member who doesn't have hours to spend looking over the forums ever hope to receive any books on their WL?

This does happen, but I don't think it's that common. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of posting a book directly to somebody's WL - I might do it if they mention not having goteen any books in a while, for instance - but so far I've never actually done it. All all the wishlisted books I've posted have gone to the first person in line. And even though I don't participate in the trading threads, I've gotten plenty of WL books. That's one of the things I like about this site - you don't have to rush to be the first to snap up a book, and you don't have to try to get people to send you books. You just put the book on your list and the site takes care of the rest :)

You notice the quoted post says "first person to PM." I offer WL books at the love and romance forum and perhaps 80% of the time, I don't even know the person who requests it--I just know that they really want the book and I'm not going to have to waste a lot of time waiting for someone to answer the offer. It's not like it's some little clique that only the beautiful people can join. 

And everything done there is absolutely within "the PBS system."

I don't consider offering books that belong to me to the person of my choice as having them "swiped up".  PBS rules on doing this say:

We hope that members do not do this too often, as FIFO is really the fairest way of swapping books, but they are YOUR books, and we wanted to offer this option to members who wished to use it.

Well, I wish to use it.  'Nuf said there, I think.  When PBS changes that rule, I guess I won't do that anymore.

Okay, this isn't really a reply, but I don't know where else to post this and seems silly to start a new "wish list" post.

I'm frustrated. I listed a book nearly 2 weeks ago, one I figured would probably go out right away. Instead, I just keep being shown that it is on someone's wish list, and they have 48 hours to respond. No response.

Finally the 5th one responded, and I do not meet their requirements, a non smoking household. So now it's on another persons wish list  hold. At this point, I find the whole thing frustrating and really am about to toss the book out because I am having a nice little temper tantrum over it's not being requested.

I understand wish lists. I have books on my wish list. But I expected this book to be on it's way by now. Since I live so far from most members, and it takes about 2 weeks for a book to go, instead of having a credit in 2 weeks, I'm now looking at a month or more, depending on how many wish lists I have to go through. This sucks and I'm frustrated and whining. Blah blah blah and this too shall pass.

thanks for listening

Janet

Sorry for your frustration Janet. Do you list other books here or just WL? Whenever I post a WL that doesn't go right away, I am just thankful that there are still wishers behind the ones that don't respond and it goes immediately to another order instead of languishing on my shelf waiting for someone to order the other 187 copies of the book that were in the system before mine.

what i hate is when i do get offered a WL book, and i immediately accept but then the person who offer it never accepts my request and then it gets cancelled! why would you list it then in the first place????

That would be frustrating too!

Paperbacksswap is awesome, but sometimes, like all things, there are frustrating moments to it. Wouldn't you know, 15 minutes after posting here, the very next WL person DID order it. I aleady Pm'd them, and got a response, post of fice is closed till Monday or I would send the silly book out today, but it will be out of my hands by Monday. LOL I shouldn't really complain, not bad for a book some other person left on an airport bench last winter.

Frustration in Action. Always nice when it does get resolved.

Janet