PaperBack Swap Blog


Posts Tagged ‘U.S. Military APO Address’

News: Try Delivery Confirmation, PBS Cookbook, New Business Cards & More…

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Share and Share alike. trade your books icons <—Those icons are now at the top of every page, under the blue banner.  They allow you to tweet a link, send a link in an email, display a book listing on facebook or myspace…or a ton of other options.  Wanna tell everyone on facebook what you’re currently reading?  Click the icon when you’re on the Book Details page for that book, choose Facebook, type in a comment if you want, and boom!  it goes onto your facebook page.  Tell people what books you’ve mailed out, what books you’re wishing for…whatever you want to share.

Try it…you’ll like it. Don’t forget that if you have never used PBS-DC before, you have 3 free trials of the feature!  The 19-cent USPS e-DC fee still applies (you pay that with extra postage applied to the package) but the 27-cent PBS fee is waived for three separate shipments if you want to try this out.  PBS Delivery Confirmation comes with Quick Credit (and with Guaranteed Credit for accounts with good sending records).  To try this out, choose “Print with Delivery Confirmation alone” (the middle option on the Wrapper Settings page) and your wrapper will print out with a DC barcode. The offer is good until October 24th. You can read more about PBS-DC here, in the Help Center. Printable Postage is not included in this offer –it’s just for PBS-DC.

PBS Store NewsPBS Cookbook final proof has been approved and printing is in process  – Members have been flipping over the BookFlips (get ‘em while we still have ‘em!) -  and now that cooler weather is on the way, it may be time for a cozy PBS sweatshirt.

Recycle Books Hoodie

Richard wearing his awesome PBS Sweatshirt.

APO/FPO/DPO members: For those of you at military/diplomatic addresses, you know that you have had to use the mandatory Requestor Conditions (RCs) on your accounts.  But what about the requests to APO/FPO/DPO addresses that are submitted by stateside members?  We have changed things so that if a request is submitted to be sent to an APO/FPO or DPO address, the Requestor Conditions will be applied automatically.  If you have other text in your Requestor Conditions, that will be included – it will appear above the mandatory PBS text on the request.  You can read the text for the mandatory PBS APO/FPO/DPO RCs at the bottom of the Help doc here.

Be a card-carrying member… of all three sites!  The Omni Business Card is hot off the presses: it can be customized with your name (you can choose NOT to show your name!), nickname, join date – as you like.  It’s a great way to refer new people to all three clubs and get referral credit!  You can download and print these for free from the Spread the Word page.  Check out the PBS business cards, bookmarks and flyers also available for download from that page, under Community at the top of any page on the site.

Dear Librarian,

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Dear Librarian- The other day I got an email reminding me to repost a book I’d received.   But I’ve already reposted that book!  Why did I get that email?  –Curious in Chillicothe

Dear Cue,

The email was actually encouraging you to rate or even review the book, if you had read it.  Assigning star ratings is one of the most helpful things a member can do for the club — it helps other members get a better idea if they might want to order that book.  It also helps any member who has posted the book – a highly-rated book is more likely to be requested.  So rate those you have, and those you don’t have but have read!   And if you’re feeling chatty, reviewing a book is really a terrific thing to do also, to let other members know what you thought of a book.  It doesn’t have to be a “literary” review – but hearing from another member why she or he liked (or didn’t like) a book can really mean a lot to someone who is browsing for his or her next read.  “Real words” from “real members” carry a lot more power than the publisher’s blurb!

Dear Librarian-  I am in a military family and we are at an APO address.  That means sometimes the books we request take longer to get to us, and many of them are declared “lost” by PBS before we get them.  Not to worry – I have read the Help Center information on managing accounts from USPS-served addresses outside the contiguous US, and I know how to mark the books received from my Transaction Archive and give the senders credit.  What I am wondering is, why do I sometimes get another offer of the book after I have marked it received?  Shouldn’t the system know I got the book and take it off my Wish List?  — All Puzzled Over this at APO

Dear Po,

Yes, the system should know you got the book.  When it was declared “lost” it went onto your Wish List automatically – it makes sense that when you mark it received it will come off your Wish List automatically.  But that is not how things have been happening – up until now, members have had to remember to go take the formerly “lost” books off their Wish Lists after marking them received from the Transaction Archive.   Yes, we did say “up until now”!  How observant of you, Po!  Yes, we have finally fixed this and now when you mark a “lost” (or canceled) book as received, the item will come off your Wish List automatically (unless you mark the book “received, but with a problem”).   Just a few more clicks we’re saving you in your day!  Thanks for nudging us to take care of this – we’ve had it on our To Do list for a while. :)