Readers United is a way for people to
exchange books with each other.
It works on a credit system, so when you send a book to somebody
you will be awarded some credits when it arrives.
You can then use those credits to request books from other members on the site.
Members send books directly to each other.
Yes, there are no charges to use the site.
You will have to pay the postage cost each time you send a book,
but when you receive a book it is free.
No. You can choose whether to accept or decline each request made on
your books. If you don't need the credits or you don't like the other
member's reputation then you don't have to send your book.
We can email you whenever books you are looking for are newly listed by other members,
we call this an 'alert'.
You can set up an alert for a single book or a range of
books covered by a search on book title, authors, keywords, categories or ISBN.
Look for the  symbol in the browse or search pages, click on it to add an alert to your personal list.
Members from all countries are allowed. We've made it worth your while to accept
requests from different countries: you will get extra credits for the
extra postage costs plus a few extra credits for your trouble.
You can of course choose not to accept any request from another country and you
can restrict your searches and alerts to only show books from your country.
When you are looking for books on the browse or search pages, set
the 'show books from' option to your country or region.
Sometimes we need to send an email to you, usually one when you join and then again
when somebody requests one of your books. Sometimes these emails may be diverted
or blocked by overzealous spam filters.
If you suspect that this is happening please check the spam folder of your email reader program if it has one.
If this is the case then you must add our email, readersunited@googlemail.com ,
to your address book or contacts list.
The exact details of how to do this depend on what you use to read your email.
If you don't do this then we will not be able to tell you when you have a new request.
The best way is to list books. The more books you put up the sooner
somebody will request one of them and you can get some credits. If you recommend a friend to the site then you can earn bonus credits. You can also buy credits.
It is not uncommon for books to be delated but rare for them to be lost, they often turn up late especially book sent from overseas.
If your request for a book was accepted but it is taking a long time to arrive then here are some things to try.
After a certain number of days different options will become available on the late request, so check your requests page evey few days.
You should always click 'book has not arrived' when you see it, this will give the owner a certain number of days to respond or you will get your credits back.
Similarly click 'cancel' if you want your credits back when the book has not been sent yet.
You could send a polite message to the owner to see what has happened, do this by clicking on their name and then on 'send message'.
Similarly 'resend' will trigger an email to the owner, it could be the first email telling them of your request got lost!
Remember these options are not available on every request, it depends how long you have been waiting and what stage the request is at.
If all else fails then send us a message using the contact page, we will contact the owner and if they do not respond will suspend their account.
It's unlikely, and here's why:
- Reputation
- Click on a member's name to see how reliable they have been in the past.
- Recommendation
- New members wont have a history you can check. In this case you can check
the member who recommended them, that will give you a good idea of how
reliable they are going to be.
- Guarantee
- Last but not least we will guarantee your book against non-delivery
if you have a posting receipt. In the UK a 'proof of posting' receipt is free,
just ask for it at the post office. If your book goes missing
show us the receipt and we will refund your credits. And by the way
you can use the receipt to get compensation and at least your postage
costs back from the post office.
There is a vacation setting on the my books page.
Use this whenever you are unable to access your emails for a significant amount of time.
Not everbody will be able to see your setting, only members that have either requested one of your books or are waiting for you to confirm receipt of their book.
You may still receive book requests whilst the vacation setting is on, the requesters will be informed that you may not be able to reply straight away, you can then respond to the requests when you are available again.
If you temporarily want to take a book off your list then
just make the book 'inactive'. This means no other members can see the book, but the information
is still stored so that you can reactivate it at any time.
If you want to permenantly take a book off your list then just
'remove' the listing.
We were asked by you. In some cases members wanted to request a book when they didn't have enough credits;
they either couldn't get the credits or couldn't wait.
We thought the fairest thing would be to let them buy credits and put back any money raised into the site as running costs.
Whilst an account is waiting for its credentials to be checked out it is 'pending approval'.
The most likely cause of this is an unconfirmed email address or a missing name, address or zip/postcode.
Occasionally we have to approve new accounts manually, if this happens please be patient it can take a few days for us to get back to you.
Whilst your account is pending you can not make book requests or reply to requests on your books.
When the account has been approved you will be sent an email.
Whilst you are waiting you can still add books to your list.
Every time a member is involverd in a book request it affects their reputation for better or worse.
The coloured bar  after a members name is a summary of their reputation:  green is good,  red is bad (negative feedback, missing or delayed book) and  yellow is neither good or bad (usually means slow response - not neccessarily a bad thing).
Click on any reputation bar to see the reasons for any red or yellow shown.
If a member is still new they will not have a reputation yet but you can sometimes look at the reputation of the member that invited them to join Readers United.
It is generally worth trusting new members; so far we have had very few books go missing, and if one does there is always the guarantee.
Use the friends page to make an invitation code.
Send an email to your friend and when they use the code to sign up they will receive
20 credits after they list some books.
To help them get started their initial reputation will be linked to yours.
For helping to promote the Readers United idea you will receive
8 credits after your friend sends their first book.
Use the group page to make an invitation code.
Send an email or message to your blog/forum/webpage/etc. and
when somebody uses the code to sign up they will receive
20 credits after they list some books.
For helping to promote the Readers United idea you will receive
4 credits each time somebody uses your invitation to sign up and list some books.
Yes. When you list a textbook the credit value will be assigned based on the retail price
Text books can be worth a lot of money so it is important that the correct credit value is assigned.
If you do not agree with the assigned value then deactivate the listing and then send us a message.
When setting the credit value of a book we take into account the postage cost.
So large or heavy books will be given more credit value in order to cover postage cost.
The credit value of a book is set automatically based on its retail price,
condition and estimated postage cost based on size and weight. If a book
is posted internationally then extra credits are added to cover the
increased postage cost.
In the future we may allow members to set the credit values of their own books,
if you think it is a good idea?
You can ask more questions...
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