Requests other authors send you land on the Received Requests tab of Book Swaps, and the badge on the tab counts them. Each one waits 5 days for an answer. This article covers reading a request and the three answers: accept, counter offer, decline.
Respond to swap requests
Read an incoming swap request, accept it with the book, date and link it needs, make a counter offer, decline, and understand paid requests and the upgrade hold.
Last updated September 7, 20264 min read
Dana MarekExpires in 3 days
Request:
SoloYour list:Sci-Fi Readers(4,120)•You shareSeptember 19, 2026
Offer:FeatureTheir list:Thriller Weekly(21,050)
Expires in 3 days
- Request is what they want from you: the swap type, which of your lists, and the date you would send. That date is theirs to choose, so it is already on the card.
- Offer is what they send back: the type and their list. There is no date yet. You choose it from their calendar when you accept.
- The chip on the right counts down to expiry. A Counter Offer chip means this request is someone's answer to one of yours, and a Paid Booking chip with an amount replaces the Offer row when they are buying the slot rather than trading.
Open the card to see their message, their book and, on a short-notice request, the note Does not affect response rate: a request whose share date is within a day of being sent does not count towards your response rate either way.
Accept
Accept Swap opens a short form on the card. Confirm Swap at the bottom stays disabled until everything is there, and hovering it lists what is missing.
CancelDecline
Confirm Swap
Still needed to confirm:
- Select the book to share
- Pick the date they will promote your book
- The book to share. Books their list does not accept are greyed out, marked Genre mismatch or Lead magnet not accepted.
- The date they promote your book. View Their Calendar shows their open days; pick one.
- Your book link, unless the book already has one saved. As when sending, you can tick I will provide the book link later only if that date is more than three days away.
- A list and a type, if they offered several: Type (choose one) and Their Lists (Choose One) sit on the card itself.
Once you accept, the swap moves to Active Swaps for both of you.
What accepting does to other requests
Accepting can close other pending requests on the same list. Anything on the same date that cannot share it is declined for you: a Solo excludes everything else that day, a Feature excludes another Feature or a Solo, and Mentions only clash with a Solo. Requests that would break your same-book or same-author cooldown go the same way. Before this happens, a Conflicting Swaps box lists every request that will be declined and asks you to confirm. Those declines are permanent, and the other authors are told why.
Make a counter offer
Counter Offer answers with different terms instead of a plain no.
Counter Offer to Dana Marek
Your List (Locked)
You will send on: Sci-Fi Readers
This is the list they originally requested
What do you want to receive? *
SoloFeatureMention
What will you send? *
SoloFeatureMention
CancelSend Counter Offer
Your list is locked to the one they asked for. Everything else is yours to set: which of their lists you want, the date they share your book, your book, what you want to receive and what you will send, your link and a message. They receive it as a new request on their own Received Requests tab, marked Counter Offer, with 5 days to answer. Your original request is closed, and a counter offer counts as a response.
Decline
Decline asks for an optional message, which the other author sees on their card. Declining counts as a response, so it never hurts your response rate; letting the request expire does.
Paid requests
When an author buys a slot instead of trading, accepting opens Confirm Paid Promotion with the buyer, book, type, date and price. Their card is charged the moment you accept, on your own Stripe account; BookSparker keeps a 10 percent fee, plus VAT on that fee where it applies to you, and Stripe pays you out on its usual schedule. You need to have completed Stripe onboarding for paid slots before you can accept one.
Swap Pending Upgrade
Every plan has a monthly swap limit, checked for both authors when a request is accepted. If you are at yours, you cannot accept until you upgrade. If the sender is at theirs, the swap is accepted but held: Swap Pending Upgrade explains that they have 48 hours to upgrade, and the swap is cancelled automatically if they do not. When the share date is less than three days away there is no time to wait, and the request is cancelled straight away.
Common questions
Why is a book greyed out?
Their list does not take it. Either its genre is not among the list's target categories, or it is a lead magnet and the list does not accept those.
Why does the card not show when I would be promoted?
Because you have not chosen yet. Their share date is fixed when they ask; yours is picked from their calendar when you accept.
What happens if I do nothing?
The request expires after 5 days and counts as unanswered, which lowers your response rate. Short-notice requests are the exception.
Can I change my mind after accepting?
You can ask to move a share date, or cancel with a reason. Both are covered in confirm swaps and change dates.