If you can't find a book in the PaperBackSwap database:

• If this is a book you Posted and you are looking for your own copy in the system - are you looking too soon after posting the book? The system needs a chance to synch up across all the servers for a search to find a newly posted item. Give it an hour or two and try again.

• Check your search terms
  • misspellings/typos are the most common reason why a search does not find a book
  • It is possible that you are doing a genre search but the book is not listed with that genre
  • If this is a book you posted to your account Bookshelf, check the listing on your account Bookshelf:
    • check the title/author spelling
    • check the genre/subgenres the book is listed with in the database
  • Make sure you are not using too-general terms OR too specific terms on a keyword search
    • if you do a keyword search for "the red house" for example, you will get every listing with the words "the" and "red" and "house" in it
    • You can make your search an EXACT search by putting quotation marks around the words in the keyword search field - that will tell the system to show you only book listings that contain text matching EXACTLY those words in that order.
    • You can also narrow and specify your search using the Book Browser - put author name in the author field and/or title in the title field (instead of using the keyword search at the top of the site or the top of the Book Browser)
    • If you use too-specific terms and make a typo that can also cause your search to fail; some non-alphabet characters (such as parentheses, apostrophes, colons) can also cause search confusion, so it's best to avoid those.
• Then make sure you are checking the correct database(s)
  • If you are searching Only Posted books and this book is currently UnPosted (= unavailable to request), then it will not come up in a search of Posted books
  • If you are searching Wish List books and this book is not currently on a Wish List, you will not get any search results
  • You can widen your search to All Books using the menu at the top of the page on a search result, or using the Advanced Search, or by clicking the link "Don't see the book you are looking for?" on the upper right of the search result for a Posted Books search.
  • If you are searching for a book on YOUR account Bookshelf, you should search Posted Books.
• Try an ISBN search
  • you can look for an ISBN for the title you want in another Internet archive by using Google.com)
  • Doing this will sometimes prompt our database to add that listing (not in every case!)
  • Be sure to search without hyphens in the ISBN
• Check to be sure you haven't chosen to exclude the book's genre from your searches.
  • If you have chosen to exclude specific genres/subgenres from your search, and the book you are looking for is categorized in one of your excluded genres, you won't see it in your search.
  • You can check to see which genres/subgenres you have excluded, if any, by looking at the left side of a Book Browser page (accessible from the menu under Search at the top of any page on the site), or in your Account Settings (accessible from My Account >> Settings).
• If the ISBN search gives you the message that the ISBN is not known to the PBS database:
  • This means that PBS doesn't have any information for that ISBN
  • The PBS database is huge, but it doesn't have every ISBN every published
  • The PBS database is updated on a regular basis, and ISBNs are added all the time.
  • If an ISBN is unknown to the PBS database:
    • A book cannot be posted using that ISBN (it needs to be posted as a non-ISBN item)
    • That ISBN cannot be put onto a Wish List, TBR Pile, or Reminder List
  • Although you cannot Wish List an item that is not known to the database, you can use Saved Searches to check the database periodically to see if the item has been added.
    • To do this, click on your search result to save your Search terms, and repeat the search from time to time to see if the book was added. 

If your search is not helpful -- you get too many (or less relevant) search results:

• Try using the Title or Author fields in the Book Browser

  • Using the Quick Search space at the top right of the site is a Keyword Search
    • Keyword Searches will look for any book listing that contains ANY of the words you enter
    • Keyword Searches include the Book Description
  • The Title or Author field of the Book Browser is a more specific search
    • Each of these searches look for an exact match to all of the terms you type into the field (that's why spelling in those fields matters!)
  • The Book Browser is accessible from the menu under Search at the top of any page on the site.

Related Links:

What if a book I want is not available?
How to find books to request
What are Saved Searches?
How to Use Saved Searches