OS: Windows 8.1 Pro; Intel 3/60 GHz processor; 8 Gig RAM; NVidia GeForce GT710 graphics card.

I've spent a frustrating day trying to get the Sellable Novels mod to work - at all. It is supposedly installed, listed in my Downloads folder. But its function is not automatic, I do not know what steps must be taken to make it work, and I have not been able to find coherent, detailed, step by step instructions.

I have tried:
* Bringing the author along with the bookstore owner and having the author place their novel in the bookshelf. Available to read, but not for sale.
* Having the author give the book to the owner, and attempting to have the owner set the book for sale. Owner could not do it. Consistent "Cannot set for sale" response no matter where or on what the book was placed.
* Troubleshooting possible mod clashes (HCDU+ found nothing), but removing the primary suspects did not help.

Currently attempting the DRASTIC action of stripping out my entire game file so that I can have a virgin vanilla game to attempt to try the mod with - but if I have to go THAT far, is it worth it? (No I'm not deleting the game file, just moving it out of the program's reach.)

You know, if you have an issue with one of my mods you could post your issue in the discussion thread on the upload, and then I will be notified and will probably see it sooner.

There is nothing you have to do to make the mod work. It just works. You don't sell novels from bookshelves, you just place the book itself - on any surface - and then mark it for sale. If it is not working, that probably means you have something conflicting with it. It would be a conflict with the OBJD and not with a BHAV or a BCON, so the original HCDU won't detect it and you will have to use some other tool. I don't remember right now which of the modern conflict detection tools checks for OBJD conflicts (if any) but I believe that SimPE can be used to check for CC objects having duplicate GUIDs with each other and/or Maxis objects, which should also identify conflicting OBJD overrides.

You have to troubleshoot in a logical way, just getting angry about it not working isn't going to get you very far! It's up to you as to whether you think this is worth it or not.

This may help you to find any conflicts:
Game Help:Finding Problem Custom Content^wiki

Apologies kestrellyn as I didn't realise this issue was about a specific mod, so didn't direct them to post in your thread.

Kestrellyn thinks it's an OBJD conflict. Going vanilla wouldn't help, in that case.

...Results totally inconclusive with both SimPE and Delphy's Download Organizer.

Kestrellyn's mod download page explains how to sell novels.

https://modthesims.info/d/610895
You put them for sale the same way as you put anything for sale in OFB, by visiting the business lot with the owner and using the wholesale tool to set the shelf as saleable (which makes everything on the shelf for sale) or else click on indiviual items to mark for sale.
https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Business#Shops


Kestrellyn is saying that something you have is overwriting the mod. Test this out by making a backup of your game and playing with the sellable novels mod and nothing else. This will show you that the mod works by itself. Then use the guide I linked to find which mod you have that is conflicting.

No, you are not being gaslit, but you need to do some work yourself to find out why it is not working. Please keep discussion of this issue to this thread and please don't PM me about it.

"Some" work - what an understatement.

Okay, Real Dumb Question time: do you put the book on the shelves first and then mark the shelves for sale, or do you mark the shelves for sale first and then put the book on?

Even Dumber Question: how to get the book on the shelves at all? Am running a barebones game (took me all morning to get it set up), and currently trying to operate novelist/bookstore owner as same person. She "put away" the book on a bookcase that had NOT been marked for sale, and that could not be marked for sale once the book was on it. (I guess that answers question 1 - Mark first, and mark ALL bookshelves at same time.)

Either will work.


What do you want, for me to come around to your house to do the work for you?
To do a 50/50 would have taken you less time then all the posts you've made about this.

You said: "Test this out by making a backup of your game and playing with the sellable novels mod and nothing else." AND NOTHING ELSE.

Kestrellyn claiming it was an OBJD conflict meant stripping, not just the custom mods, but ALL custom content of ANY type.

So I started a new, vanilla, completely barebones game in order to avoid any possible OBJD conflicts.

Yes, that's how you prove that it's a problem with your other content, and not a problem with your game setup.

Again, I'll link:
Game Help:Finding Problem Custom Content^wiki

The 50% method will help you to find which piece of content is conflicting very quickly, once you have indeed confirmed that this is the issue. No-one else can do it for you.

I've got news for you: the vanilla setup still did not allow purchase of "sellable" custom novels.

I can't figure it out.

I guess I'm just too stupid to be able to use this mod.

You edited this post after I'd replied to it and I didn't see this addition. We are talking about the OFB shelves, which you use to put individual items for sale upon.
Kestrellyn has a picture of one type in her thread:


They are in the buy catalog:

D'OH! And no one, no one, ever explained that!!!

Yes they did- kestrellyn in their download thread specifies 'OFB shelves' and shows an image of the novels on the aforementioned shelf display. And I mention this in post #5. The shelves are in a section called 'shelves' in the buy catalog.

Peni even tells you how to do this here:
https://modthesims.info/showthread....015#post5938015


I think maybe you owe someone an apology!

It's not as obvious as you think. I did try to find a matching surface, but what I didn't realize until I combed through the catalog - and what was never, ever mentioned - is that in k's illustration the books were placed on the Magisplay shelves on top of (what looks like) a regular table.

EDIT: That was the secret, all right. Found the Magisplay trays by digging into the Business collection, and by chance there already was a regular table available in the bookstore. It's always some little thing everyone else takes for granted that I know - when I don't.

It's okay- everyone misses little things in the game, and everyone makes mistakes. We all (myself included) have d'oh moments on the forum, and there is in fact a thread for moments like that:
https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=574022

But- next time maybe don't be so quick to label people as being unhelpful. You've had lots of help on this thread and others and have responded not with a thank you, but with accusations.

Unfortunately some of the suggestions were not only not helpful, they were counter-productive. I was running in circles trying to find an "OBJD conflict" that turned out not to exist, when the real problem was that I needed to know exactly what to put the books on in the first place. (D'OH indeed!)

You finally clued me in by pointing out that "OFB shelves" =/= regular bookshelves, tables, or anything of that sort - and I finally was able to figure out that the Magisplay trays were what made regular tables into what I needed. "Mellon!" (Remember that "D'OH!" moment from LOTR? :-D )

Well, once people had told you again how to use the mod, the logical progression was that, if it was not working, you had something else that was causing the problem.

This was not unhelpful at all, just misguided by your replies.

However, the problem has been solved now so it is all moot. You obviously feel that everyone else is to blame for this taking so long, so let's just forget it and move on.

For the future -and yes all of us who use cc and mods have done a 50/50 search, probably a few times or even a lot of times. It comes with using lots of custom content.

To make this process easier you want to make a test folder. This folder can also be used to test things like custom foods or just to check new CC out. Very handy to have.

Go to your Sims 2 folder under documents. It will be named differently depending on your set up. Right click the folder and go to rename and then add a word to the end of its name. Don't delete any words or symbols just add a word to the end.
Run the game -you will have a new vanilla game.
Exit and set it up with what you need for the test. If I were to do a test on selling novels I would make a test sim, maxmotives them and on speed three have them write a novel. Then I would either start a home business or buy a com lot. And with only the sellable novel in try selling it.
If that works I would know that my main game had some conflict. That some other piece of CC or a mod was blocking sellable novels from working.

With your sims 2 folders you now have 2. Your old game renamed and your test game. All you have to do is rename them as the game only loads the correctly named folder. So to play your main folder again you would right click the test folder and add a word to the end of it like 'test' and then right click your main folder and remove that extra word you added before testing. You can have as many separate sims 2 folders doing this as either you or your PC can take.

Thanks for the tip about just renaming the game folder, it certainly saves some time.



That's basically what I did, but I still hadn't clued into the fact that you have to use only shelving from the Open For Business expansion pack, so of course it didn't work.
It was only after that that someone gave me a hard enough whack with the clue stick.

Can we call this thing "Solved" now?

You don't have to put them on OFB shelves, like I said before you can put them anywhere, directly on the table or on the floor or on an end table or on a counter or literally anywhere, the code for marking them for sale literally does not care where they are. If you put them into a bookshelf they disappear and obviously can't be marked for sale at that point since they no longer exist on the lot. Bookshelves have special behavior when they are marked for sale and will then sell generic books that you can ordinarily take off of any bookshelf.

I often put the OFB crafted flowers for sale on a pedestal or end table, works just fine.

I think that the problem with bookshelves is that the game presumes that you want to put the bookshelf itself for sale.

No, as previously stated, bookshelves have a special behavior when you set them for sale, and sell individual books of the kind you get when you ordinarily direct the sim to read a generic novel. As far as I'm aware it's not possible to actually sell the entire bookshelf from an owned business lot, for this reason.

Oh, that's interesting. I've never tried to sell books or bookcases. Does it let you pick the theme of the novel?

I have sold them on tables.

I found out about bookcases selling individual books (they have titles if you check them out) years ago and I am constantly surprised that this does not seem to be general knowledge. I guess i just love OFB so I've sold just about anything and everything over the years.