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Posts Tagged ‘SwapaCD’

Writers, Front and Center! Newsletter – February 2008

Monday, February 4th, 2008

Some of our best members come from small towns and cities across the US.  But many communities have never even heard about PaperBackSwap or the sister sites SwapaCD and SwapaDVD because there has never been any media coverage where they live.  And unfortunately, many of these small publications do not have the staff to write about our club themselves.  So we are asking for some help from members who are writers and have previously submitted articles to newspapers/magazines for publication.  If you are interested in working with Richard on getting some articles written about PaperBackSwap – we sure could use your help!   Please send inquiries to the email address we have set up for this purpose: RichardPickering@PaperBackSwap.com.   Thanks in advance to all who step forward to help!

Dear Members, Newsletter – October 2007

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

We were listening to music (a classic Smashing Pumpkins CD that we got from SwapaCD) and we got to feeling really Hallowe’en-y. It must have been some subliminal association with the word “pumpkins”. We were humming along, but instead of feeling Smashing Pumpkins’ full of rage or like rats in a cage, instead we started getting in the mood to give out yummy stuff for free. So we buckled down to work and put some new features on the site–some that we have been thinking about and working on for a while, and a couple that just came to us out of the blue. You can find the new “treats” on the site–the Recipes page, the Instant Credit feature, the Tags (read more about all of these below). Yep, Hallowe’en at PBS is all Treats, no Tricks. No carbs or cavities, either.

The moral of the story: Be careful what you listen to…music has the power to drive all kinds of behavior. (Where would the new iPod Nano be without Feist?) Harness that power for GOOD, people!

What’s on your SwapaCD Tower?

Have a great October,

The PaperBackSwap Team

TIPS & TRICKS: Newsletter – September 2007

Sunday, September 2nd, 2007

What’s Hot. We are often asked for guidance on what kinds of books are popular at PBS.  Well, the tastes of the membership run the gamut, but we see that cookbooks, audiobooks, erotica, Large Print and nonfiction pretty much fly off the shelves.  If you have any of these types of books, post them and get a quick request!

What do Gone With the Wind and The Lord of the Flies have in common? Well, two things: they are both on the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century list, and they are both challenged/banned books.  No, not challenging: challenged, as in books that groups have tried to remove from school libraries.   See the Radcliffe top 100 list (42 of which have been banned/challenged) here.  The last week of September is National Banned Books Week.  Be daring!  Read a banned book.  You can read more about Banned Books Week here.  Thanks to member Jene (sexymf) for her heads-up about this.  Warning: some of these books may be found to be offensive by some members.  But many of them are literary classics already, and some of them are sure to be literary classics in the future!

Words and Music. We’re happy to see that more and more of you are taking advantage of the ability to transfer credits between your PBS and SwapaCD accounts.  It looks like many of you are off-loading your music CDs and using the credits at PBS to get books; others are swapping their books and getting new music.  It’s so easy to transfer credits between the sites: the link to do this is under My Account on the SwapaCD site.   If you haven’t joined SwapaCD yet, join now!  You don’t have to do anything special to “link” the accounts at registration–when you go to transfer credits, the system will ask you to identify your PBS account.  Nothing could be easier.

On the Move? If you are moving house, please remember to update your address information in your Account Settings.  It is really important to prevent books from arriving at your old address after you have moved.  Media Mail postal rate does not come with automatic forwarding service, and such books would be lost or returned to the sender (usually postage due)!  If you have a requested book that hasn’t arrived yet, and your move date is coming up, you can make arrangements with the PO for your OLD zip code to forward your Media Mail (this may entail extra postage-due on arrival).  If you have submitted requests that haven’t been mailed yet, please see How to change the mailing address on a request you have already submitted, in the Help Center.  And don’t forget to put your account on Hold during the move!

TIPS & TRICKS: Newsletter – March 2007

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

Words into Music, Music into Words. You can turn your CDs into books, and vice versa, all with a few clicks! If you have an account at both PBS and SwapaCD, you can easily transfer credits between the sites. Get your Wish List book using a credit from your SwapaCD account. Get that CD you want by sending out a book. It’s very easy to do from your SwapaCD account page. Just log into SwapaCD and click on Transfer Credits in the right menu. You can transfer credits in either direction (from SwapaCD to PBS, or from PBS to SwapaCD), whenever you like.

Reviews work! How many times have you read a Member Review of a book in the database on PBS, and were convinced by what you read to request the book? Member Reviews pique browsers’ interest. After all, the publisher’s description will always be glowing. Hearing what real readers think about the book can be much more powerful. So provide Book Reviews for the books on your bookshelf! If the PBS database happens to lack a book description for an ISBN, a review is even more crucial: your review may be the ONLY information PBS has about your book. You can read about how to post and edit reviews in the Help Center item “How do I post/edit my review of a book?” (This can be found under the “Posting Books” heading.) Remember, a Member Review must NOT contain descriptions of a particular copy’s condition. Member Reviews are your chance to give your impressions about a book’s content, and Reviews stay attached to the book listing in the database—they do not follow any particular copy of a book.

Automated Postal Centers. If your PO has one of these, they can be a real time-saver. Even if your package weighs over a pound, there is no need to wait in line. You can use the automated postal center to weigh your package (there is usually a table of Media Mail rates on the machine, but you might want to print out the one from the Help Center item “How much does it cost to mail a book?” under the heading Sending a Book” just in case and take it with you). Then you can choose “print stamps” and enter whatever denomination you want (say, $2.21 for your book weighing more than a pound that you plan to send with PBS Delivery Confirmation). You can pay with your debit or credit card, and you can print out any number of postage “stamps”. If your package fits in the bin next to the Automated Postal Center, you can drop it in. Because your postage has been paid for by credit/debit card, it can be tracked to you, and this satisifies the National Security precautions for packages over a pound. If your local PO has one of the automated centers, check it out! Some of them are located in PO lobbies, and are available 24 hours a day. We are not postal authorities, so we don’t know all the ins and outs about these machines—but we have used them and we love them! You can find out more about them at your local PO, at usps.com, or ask our resident USPS expert Steve (Coffee) in the Questions About USPS Discussion Forum on PBS.

COMING SOON: Newsletter – September 2006

Friday, September 1st, 2006

We are working on making PBS Money usable for anything in the Kiosk! Soon you will be able to buy credits, DC, and your Tote and BookMate from the money in your PBS account. We are still working on the ability to print postage directly onto the PBS Wrapper—stay tuned!

New features are “brewing” over at SwapaCD.com! If you haven’t checked PBS’ sister site out yet, click the link in the left menu to go directly there. You can easily transfer your PBS account information to register at SwapaCD, and you can also transfer credits between the two sites! Just click “Transfer Credits” in the right menu of your SwapaCD account page.

SwapaCD.com launched on August 7, 2006! Newsletter – August 2006

Monday, August 7th, 2006

SwapaCD (www.swapacd.com) launched on August 7, 2006! Within 2 weeks, we had over 3,000 members, and more than 18,000 CDs available for swapping! You can easily transfer your PBS account information to your membership at SwapaCD–just click the CD icon at the top right of the PBS banner to do this. Also, did you know that you can transfer credits back and forth between sites? Turn books into CDs, and vice versa! Check out SwapaCD—it’s as good as it sounds.

SwapaCD.com: Newsletter – June 2006

Thursday, June 8th, 2006

–We are in beta testing phase now, and hope to open the site to everyone soon. Thanks to all our beta testers, who are helping us work out the kinks so that the site can run smoothly after it opens.