I listed two books of a series this morning. Both were wishlisted. One was immediately accepted. At that point I thought to check and (sure enough) that member also had the other book wishlisted. I would have liked to have been able to offer it and mail them together (saving postage), but of course it is on wishlist hold waiting for the first-in-line person to respond.

I suppose I COULD wait until that second book is requested and then click (oops) "I cannot mail this book"! (and offer it to the person who requested the first) but that sounds "unfair", "sneaky", "dishonest", and several other adjectives with negative connotation and is not something I want to do-- especially after the member gets their hopes up that their book is available... 

More likely I would chalk it up to "lessons learned" and next time consider posting just one book, waiting until it is accepted, checking if they want the other one also...

(It did also occur to me that if I sent themtogether the second book of the series would "just be sitting on the shelf" while the member reads the first--and maybe someone (like my husband) has every book in the series and is just WAITING for that second book so he can read them all in order ...... and maybe I should just stop analyzing everything and let FIFO work...)

Mostly I am wondering whether anyone else has thought of this (surely someone has?), whether anyone DOES that, and what everybody else thinks about the idea?

Hi - I think the problem with what you are proposing (outside of  the possible moral dilemma you raised) is that you wouldn't be able to get a credit for the book if you did this.  Let's say you do say "I can't mail this book" to the person who is first on the WL.  The book is then automatically removed from your shelf.  If you were to re-add it for the purposes of allowing the person getting your other book to request it, that person would still not be able to request it because it would automatically be offered to the first person in WL line (most likely, the same person whose request you denied, thereby inciting confusion/anger with that requestor).

I understand why you want to do what you want to do...but it's really not possible unless you are willing to give it up for no credit.

I did post a 3 books that were a series and while I thought it would be nice if they went to the same person (or at least 2 of them) I realized that perhaps they didn't need all 3 or wanted to see how they liked the first one before they got the 2nd one.

I know that you have the option of posting directly to someone's wish list and you could have done that had you known that the person had both listed...but then if they are at the end of the wish list, what about those at #1 that have been waiting for awhile.

it's a hard call to make

Lisa, actually she could post it directly to someone's wish list, at least that is my understanding. now if it really goes to that person I couldn't say since I haven't done that but you never know!

I have tried that once when I had a number of books in a series - started posting from the lowest number first, posted until I hit one that was wishlisted, then checked if that person had wishlisted any of the others in the series.  The first person didn't, but the next person did have two.   In the end it didn't really seem worth the effort.

Oh, I didn't know you could post to someone's WL!  And here I thought I finally had all the ins-and-outs of PBS figured out.  Learn something new every day!  Thanks for the info.

I have done this with several series.   I post one and then look at that wishers list before posting the others.   One person once got two nearly new hardback Harry Potter books from me because I did it that way.   It may or may not work, however it could save you same money and make someone else very happy!!!!!   If posting a non wish listed book from a series, I often post just the ONE book, then when ordered, PM the person and see if they are interested in the rest of the series.   I see nothing wrong with working the system this way.  JMO

Leslie; you CAN post to someone's WL. Just make sure  you post it from their list; when you put your mouse over it it says "Post this book into the system for this member".  Do not click on the name of the book and post it from there because then you post directly into the system (it tells you that).