General PBS discussion

There isn't a general discussion thread that I found (but I didn't look too far back), so this is it.

Is anyone else noticing a LOT of wishlisted books coming available?? I've now had 10 since Jan 1st!! Not all are new books, but books I've been waiting for, sometimes for years!!

Also, today, I had a wishlisted book posted, printed & marked mailed, all within 3 minutes!! (according to 'details') I guess the one hour wait has been lifted for wishlisted books that you don't have on hold/wait/ask status!

I've had a run of hits recently, too. I'd actually managed to accrue 10 or 11 points by posting a batch of WL'd books and then poof, points all gone. I have 0 now, so I expect another hit anytime now.

Yes Skittles I have. There must be a lot of new members. I'm up to 95 points and I get a lot of 2 point audiobooks. A friend of mine who gives me a lot of books to trade asked me if I could get her The Art of Racing in the Rain and it came up within a week and another book I've been waiting a year for came up. This is great!

I think it is a bit of getting books out before the postage increase & people clearing out their shelves of books they don't want to hold onto anymore..... and I'm enjoying it, too!!

A friend of mine said maybe since a lot of people got e-readers for Christmas they are as you say clearing out their books.

The GoodReads book-swap feature was cancelled on 31 October, and I think that a lot of us are using PaperBackSwap, Swap.com, and Bookins.com a lot more than we were.

>5 rxtheresa:

I'm such a laggard, I love wood cellulose.

My wishlist hits haven't picked up at all, I've always gotten between two and five or so per month. More and more of my wishlist is being taken over by craft books though and those have hundreds of people wishing for them.

I just got a very valuable hiking guide from a nearby PBSwapper. It's a book I would have never guessed would come up on PBS; a resource that I will use for years. Thanks PBS!

If you're looking to buy credits, there are quite a few up for sale in the Book Bazaar discussion group right now for 2.30 per credit or less. (These aren't mine as I've already sold some this month so I'm not soliciting.) Just FYI in case anyone needs some. Much cheaper than buying from PBS.

A question about GoldKey members: Do they get "First out" privileges?

I ordered a book on PBS yesterday and the book detail page showed that the book was listed by two members. When I ordered it the member whom it got ordered from was marked as a Goldkey member (who had lots of donation and sponsorship points as well).

I had sort of assumed that when multiple copies are listed that when a request is made the copy that had been listed the longest was the copy which got the request. But now I'm wondering if Goldkey members automatically jump to the front of the line.

It's not a big problem for me (my book was marked as mailed within 12 hours, she probably also uses PBS postage). But I was hoping that some of my inventory that is up against multiple copies would get a nibble after a while. If Goldkey members are jumping ahead when there is a request that isn't looking very likely, which makes me start thinking about other ways I can eventually get rid of them.

If a gold key member requests a book that has multiple copies available, then they get the copy that will be rec'd the fastest. To my knowledge, their books do not jump to the front of the queue to be sent out. I've not seen that mentioned anywhere.

two examples:

#1: I post a book that has no other copies available. Then you post another copy. If a gold key member requests a copy, if postal delivery times are equal, then whichever of us has a history of accepting & mailing fastest will get the request. If I normally post a book the next day, but it takes the post office 10 days to deliver the book and you take 5 days to accept & mail a book, but the post office can deliver your book in two days, then your book will be requested.

#2: If a gold key member requests a copy of a book with 5 copies, then whichever copy will get to her/him the fastest (according to stats) will be the one requested, regardless of FIFO. If the requesting member is not a gold key member, it is the FIFO book. The supposed advantage is that the gold key member will get the book faster than the non-gold key member.

There are members of PBS that cannot mail books immediately upon request. They wait the five days to accept a request and then put the mailing date 5 days out (actually 7 days to timeout) and sometimes then wait a couple of days to mail it. When there are multiple copies of a book available, this type of member will not get as many gold key requests as someone who accepts & mails quickly.

I hope this helps you understand.

(you can also ask on the PBS forum. many members there are much better than I am at explaining PBS quirks)

Yeah, I've actually never got on the PBS forums. Poked around a few times, but I felt like it was a treehouse filled with people I didn't know. Which is not to say anything bad about the people there, just how I feel. I don't know anyone hardly anyone here on LT either, but here I am. IDK, I guess the forums there remind me a lot of the forums on GoodReads: lots of women who first hung out on CafeMom. I deliberately avoided CafeMom.

No big deal, the request just piqued my curiosity. Good to know about the stats though, I always check "Mail in 2 days" and then I do. But I don't think I've mailed to GoldKey members very much, but then my volume is quite low.

I can't think of any good way to test my theory. Not unless someone wants to spend a lot of points requesting books with multiple copies available. I guess I'll just chalk it up to another one of those PBS mysteries. Kind of like Matlock. Oy, clearly it's bedtime for me.

I just got an offer, the first in literally, a couple years (a mediocre book, I declined). But I did check my list, and am # 1 for almost all the books of interest, in my wish list. I requested many of these books 7-9 years ago! Oh well, I guess I've got exclusive, expensive taste. Sigh...

I'm still active. Still get requests filled. A few more "oh, I can't send it""I don't have it any more" but nothing huge.

I've cut back my wishlists to book that, either I cannot get e-book editions, I get for someone else, I get for my workplace, or an ebook edition isn't appropriate. Most fiction is off the list.

I'm actually getting the books from my wishlist that I never thought that I'd get, especially Norton Critical Editions and reference style books.

The wishlist moves slower, but it's still moving!!

Also still active. Lots of points, a few wishlist books showing up. I don't have much on my lists available any more, but when I finish new books I don't want to keep, I do post them.

Just waking this thread up.

I'm still getting books via PBS, but it goes in spurts.

I also like that the deadline has been extended, at least temporarily.
I can be patient... very patient.

Yes, the extended deadline is nice. I've also found a site called PirateShip where you set up an account with a payment by credit card (and maybe PayPal, not sure), and you can get labels printed for your packages (Media Mail is the same price as at the Post Office) complete with tracking number. You have to have a scale that gives you at least an approximate weight to the nearest ounce, although that doesn't matter as much as with First Class. The site doesn't charge anything extra. I haven't had to go to the Post Office since I found out about this.