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Questions about PaperBackSwap
Topic: At what level of "Books Available" does this site no longer function?
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About six months ago there were around 850,000 books listed. Shortly after the February membership renewal process ended there were 817,000. Today, March 8, there are 812,000 listed, of which the top 100 posted books total nearly 15,500. What is the low water mark at which this site can no longer function? |
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I imagine the club dynamics are more dependent upon how many books are being sent out versus how many are sitting on shelves. Many members keep their shelves on hold or deal only in WL books. In fact, there's a lot of WL activity, which involves books that are not posted to shelves but count as transactions. Here's a snapshot of the Pulse of PBS, from the link at the bottom of the page: Books
Books Mailed
Members
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OK, you got me, so I used the internet's Wayback machine to take a look and see what was. Here are the stats for September 2022: Books
Books Mailed
Members
And here is July 2021: Books
Books Mailed
Members
This shows a significant drop in members, books available, and transactions. I'm not going to venture into the "why" of what happened. But again, what is the low water mark at which this venue no longer becomes feasible? |
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I think Linda is right, it's not so much about titles posted as the number of books being mailed out. None of the books being swapped in the games are 'posted', but get mailed out at the end of each game or swap. And books 'mailed to a friend' but not thru the fifo system don't get counted as 'posted' either. --today's stats don't include the 2 game books I just marked 'mailed' today. Also, if public profiles are over 144,000 members, I wonder how many people are members but not social on here so we don't see their profile ever. |
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We don't know the expenses of maintaining the website, server costs, IT, hosting etc. Mostly volunteers do the general upkeep so I think they do try to keep expenses low, but there are definite costs involved. We also don't know the revenue coming in from membership fees, swapping and postage fees. From the numbers we're shown, we can't really deduce if the net operating income stays the same, increases or declines. As to what would be too low to keep it viable, that would be an executive decision. If it happened, I would hope there would be a grace period or fair warning, rather than an abrupt end, but you can never know. We don't hear from TPTB as much as we used to. It would be really tough for me though since I've been here for almost 17 years and swapping books and participating in the forums and games has been a great hobby. |
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I guess I'll weigh in on this. Several members have told me that they are continuing to order books but are no longer sending books out, stating that it is simply too expensive. Which means they are not POSTING books which then drops available inventory. Credits sales by members are still limited to $3 each while a small book costs $4.13 to mail. I think to break (what I perceive to be) the log jam that the guys need to allow the market place determine the price of credits. And that PBS itself stop selling credits itself because that also contributes heavily to the disparity between cost of a credit vs. actual cost to mail a book. My 2 cents. |
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I used to send A LOT of books. But at $4 per book to send, it's cheaper for me to just buy credits and requests books. Now that barely anything is posted, I'm being forced to buy a lot from ebay, too. |
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I saw this in a TPTB post in the Book Bazaar: "As of today, July 6, 2016, there will be a minimum price for Book Credits sold between members of $3 per credit. ...you may not sell or buy them for less than $3.00 per Book Credit." IMO, "a minium price" means that credit sellers can ask for more. I think when the minimum was set at $3 it was still a gain for those selling the credits. Definitely not now. My credits are currently available for $4 each, still a savings from what it costs to mail a small paperback book. I haven't had any requests for my credits since the majority are available for $3 but as of now, I am ok with that. |
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I agree, with the increased cost of postage, minimum cost of credits should now be $4!! |
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I'm still mailing books, I have 11 to mail either tomorrow or Monday. And I recceive books, too, although at the moment I have only 2 coming my way. I'm far from ready to give up on PBS. |
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I agree with Marya. I've received 27 this year and sent out 198, so I don't have any complaints other than I wish we could sell more than 50 credits a month and that the cost of them could be around $4.00 instead of $3.00.. |
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I have mailed out 39 books in the past 30 days. I am a long-time member and will continue to be a member. Just not liking the current Media Mail rates and the credit re-sell value. I think both are a deterrent for posting books to send out to members. |
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Looking back I've received 1500+ and sent 1500+ in my 14yrs here, actually receiving 21 more books than I've sent. At slightly more than 100 books/yr for both receiving and sending, the stats aren't so bad, though I miss the lovely days of $1.59 media mail. |
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I have so many requests and so many wishlist books that I normally keep my account closed. Just open it for a week or two and then close it again. I do agree that the site no longer has the huge volume of books it used to. I miss that, but those individuals remaining are pretty active and many have wishlist books. |
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I do that too, Sharon, but it's cause I have 1000 on my TBR and get too many WL book offers when my shelf is open. |
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Both PBS's sister sites for DVDs & CDs have between 88,000 to 89,000 items listed to swap. On any given day the number of people logged in is between 15 to 30. Those sites don't require a membership fee. I suspect as long as there are subscribers to cover operating costs, enough volunteers to keep things running, and no major technical requirements requiring a major investment PBS will be around. Given that maintenance fixes have been minimal & upgrades non-existent, as long as they can "glide wthout engines" they'll be here. |
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I have taken to using the Wishlist Multiples program, when I started out years ago complaining about it, for keeping popular books out of the public eye. Does that make me a hypocrite? |
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No, Robin, circumstances have changed. |
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I have a lot of books that I can post to up the number of books on the shelf, but people complain that I have too many books on my shelf for them to go through so I don't know what to do. Raise the amount of books vs more people looking at my shelf-what would you do? Theresa |
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Well I think 'too many books' on your shelf just means they will only look thru part of your shelf so I would not worry about how many you have on it. I rarely ' look for more' but when I do I'll usually search by author for specific ones I like. |
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I would say it would depend on how many "paying" members there are. A lot of members don't have bookshelves anymore, but only WLed books, but as long as they continue to be paying members it would help keep the site solvent. |
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I don't think there's such a thing as too many books on a shelf. If people only want to look at a page or two, that's fine. If they want to see more (as I often do) then they can look at more. I almost always check someone's bookshelf, unless it's a WL book, and I don't see the transaction until the sender has marked it mailed. |
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