If you absolutely can't find another book to register, you can delete the extra registration. .  Go to your bookshelf, click on the title of the book, then click on “Edit Book Details”.  At the bottom of that page, you will see a “Delete” button.  Be sure that the BCID being deleted is not the one written in the book, and click Delete.

Did you make a release note before you released the book, then either changed your mind or for some reason couldn’t leave it as planned?  You will need to remove it from the “Go Hunting” pages by just making a journal entry.  Just write a brief note  explaining what happened.  Then, when you release the book, you can make a new release note.

Does your journal entry say something you don’t want to say, or did you want to add something to it?  Easy…at the bottom of the journal entry you will see “Edit Journal Entry”.  Click and go.  By the way, if you want to upload a picture of the release location or something relevant, there is also a place that says “Upload journal entry picture”. 

Sometimes, when playing around with html in your bookshelf or in a journal entry, you can mess it up so bad that it won't allow you to reach the "edit" button. BCer Wyando has set up an emergency repair page for this purpose. However, please be aware that he can not assume any responsibility for your use of this page. It should do fine, but it is a "Use at your own risk" option. You can also contact support for help. Before attempting the fancy stuff on your bookshelf, it's a good idea to copy the code to Notepad so that you have a restore copy in an emergency.

Go Hunting!  Huh?

Along with releasing books, one of the sidelines of active BookCrossers is hunting for the books that other people have released.  At the top of each BC page, you will see a tab that says “Go Hunting”.  Click on that, then go through the menus to find your town.  It will list all books still in the wild in that town, when they were released, and exactly where. You can also sign up for Release Alerts to receive an email when a book is released in your selected towns. 

Not many books in the Go Hunting section of your town?  Then it’s up to you to become an activist and recruit more members in your area to the joys of BC!

The BookCrossing site is really a great place--especially for something that is free.  How can a site this cool not be flooded with advertising or spamming me regularly?

BookCrossing operates in large part with the support of members. You can help with this by being part of the Members Plus program. This was formerly called Wings, because of the cute little icons you get when you take part. However, the program has grown so much that getting wings (or bats or stars) is just one small part of the benefits. Plus members have extra ways to navigate and organize the site, and more benefits are being added regularly.

It is important to point out that the core functions of the site will always be free. There will never be a charge to register or journal books. You may see some advertising when you do it, but it will remain free.

So, how do you become a Members Plus BookCrosser? We have the Supply Store to sell BC supplies at, what looks to me, very reasonable prices. You can even make a donation for as little as $5.00, no tax or shipping. You can also make donations in other bookcrosser's names, and earn a pair of wings for them. Any purchase or donation to the Supply Store will earn you a 1 month membership to Members Plus and a cute set of icons around your name. Click on any of the wings for more details.

If you look in the left hand column of each BC page, you will see "Support BC". Click on the triangle for a list of places that help pay for this site.   Throughout the site, you will see links to amazon.com,half.com, abebooks.com, and several others. Chances are that many of you shop at these stores.  From now on, anytime you shop at one of these places, come to BC and click on the link to the site.  Anything purchased through the BC link earns some more support for our site.  That’s true for anything you buy through the links--not just books! However, purchases made through the affiliates do not earn Members Plus time.

Can I buy supplies or make a donation through the Supply Store using PayPal?

Wyando contacted Reno, who confirmed these steps. Please note that if you pass this information along to someone in the forums, be sure to space the address as I have done, to avoid it being picked up by spambots. Now, over to Wyando.

-- -- -- -- If you have no credit card, you can pay with PayPal- although this is a bit trickier:

First you go to the BC-Store-Site: Supply Store
1. You select the stuff you want to buy and put them in the basket
2. When you finished, do a checkout
3. Enter "Shipping destination", "email address" and "Password" and click proceed
4. Now you get an "Order Confirmation": All your stuff is listed as also the shipping costs (if exist) as also the grand total. DO NOT click on "make the order"

Now you go to your PayPal-Account:
1. You make a money transfer to: (This is the part that I have spaced funny to avoid spambots.)
pa yp al2 at bo ok cr os si ng dot com (no spaces, at=@, dot=.)
2. As subject you enter BC-Store-Order by "screenname"
3. As Body/Message-Text:
3a. Your order as shown above, including shipping costs
3b. Your Screenname
3c. Your delivery address (except for donations)

3d. Your couponcode if you have entered one at the BC-Store
3e. The screenname of who should get the wings

Remarks:
1. Now, about the order at the BC-Store. You simply annul or void out the online order. Its purpose was to get the correct totals and shipping charges.
2. As this is not an eBay-auction, it could be possible, that PayPal asks some charges
3. These steps only works for the BC-Store- NOT for the Café-Press-Shop
4. Although these steps are confirmed by Ron, no responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of this information.

And that's it. Thanks for researching this and sharing it with us, Wyando.


Can you give me some tips for using the forums?

Sure!!  First, clear up large blocks of time in your schedule, because the wonderful people you will meet there, combined with the interesting, funny, often enlightening conversations can become addicting.  I have watched this international group of strangers, with nothing in common but their love of books, offer support, encouragement, sympathy, advice, and best of all, friendship to one and all.  It is simply amazing!

First, use emoticons liberally.  When you read someone’s thoughts, you lose the benefit of facial expressions and tone of voice.  What sounds funny when spoken-or heard in your own mind-can read as sarcastic or mean-spirited.  Use lots of smiley faces so that we can all arrive at the same meaning.  Along those same lines, in BC forums, as in life, it is always more pleasant if you give everything the most positive spin--at BC, that’s almost always the way it is meant.

Never, never post your address, phone number, or the first 3 numbers of a BCID on the forum.  If you mess up and post something like that, use the edit button, (explained further down the page), to fix it.

Try to stay on topic in the forum.  I know it’s tough--maybe even impossible-threads do seem to wander here.  However, each forum has its own theme, although many overlap.  We have been asked--and we seriously try-to restrict Announcement forum posts to announcements.  You will often see some one say “Moving this thread to chit chat forum.”

When you post a new message, please use a descriptive subject line.  Later, when you remember reading a post about a wonderful book, it’s hard to find in the Search feature when it is titled “Wow”.  Now, I will add that I don’t always follow my own advice, even though it is really good advice!  ;-)

Finally, please remember that there are children visiting the forums.



I just posted a message and realized that I made some embarrassing spelling errors, or said something goofy.  How do I edit my forum post?

To edit one of your posts, click on the subject line of the post. At the end of your post you will see 4 choices in little tiny letters--"view parent--reply--reply with quote--edit message" Click on edit, make your changes, and save. However, I hope that you won't worry too much about making perfect posts.  When we realized that we were all spending an inordinate amount of time worrying about this, we agreed on a BC pledge.  I can’t remember the exact pledge, but basically it goes something like this:  “We, the active posters of the BookCrossing forum, do hereby agree to accept the fact that we are all intelligent people who know the correct grammar and spelling of our language.  From this point forward, all errors noticed in members posts will be dis-regarded or assumed to be typos or an example of our brains and typing skills not working in conjunction.  Errors are never to be considered indicative of a person’s level of intelligence.”    ;-)

What does view parent message and reply mean at the bottom of each post?

Click on “reply” to post a response to this message.  Click on “parent” to read the post that prompted the post. If you scroll down under the parent message, you will also see all messages posted under this thread.

What do the wings by some people's name mean?

The wings  indicate that the member has made a purchase or a donation  from the BookCrossing Store in the last 30 days.  You can go to the store and make a donation, using your credit card or paypal, for as little as $5.00--no tax or shipping charges added to donations.  You can also "gift" wings to someone by putting their name in the blank when asked..   You can find the store here or get to it from any BookCrossing page.

Can we register library books?

No. You should never register any book that isn't your own. Registering a book requires attaching the BCID in a permanent fashion. I'm fairly certain that the library would not appreciate that action. Without the BCID permanently attached, it would be impossible to track the book.

I was looking at someone’s shelf, and it was full of @, and #, and PC.  What do they mean? ?

Before the advent of status codes, some people set up codes to make it easier to interpret their shelves.  Most of these have been removed, but, I have noticed that a few remain--for example, on my own TW shelf. ;-) For the most part, you can just ignore them.


What is the difference in "books found" and "books caught"?
Books found are books that you have received-either in the wild or by trade.  Books caught are books you have released and someone else found. BC'er Melydia remembers it this way, "Books I found, and My releases caught."


I am not getting any PM's, the newsletter, journal entries, or other BC mail.

Some email programs insist on sending Bookcrossing mail to a bulk or spam folder.
Antof9 gathered these addresses for us. If you add them to your email address book, most email programs will then consider them safe mail and quit sending them to your bulk folder.

Here's the actual address you can put in your contacts for PMs:
privatemessenger AT bookcrossing DOT com

and here is what you might want to add for Release alerts:
ReleaseAlertsNOREPLY AT bookcrossing DOT com

and here is the one to add so you can get Journal Entries:
JournalAlertsNOREPLY AT bookcrossing DOT com

In case you've contacted support, here are addresses you might get an answer from:
support3 AT bookcrossing dot com
info3 AT bookcrossing dot com
and here is the address the newsletter will come from:
newsletterbounce AT bookcrossing DOT com

Thanks for the research, Antof9!