Can books written by one sim family be transferred to a different family? result

[Janna]

I was wondering if it is possible to take the books written by a sims family and somehow transfer them to a different family. 

My Lombardi family has written a lot of books over seven generations with everyone writing books; it has added up and I was wondering if it would be possible to have them be in the personal library of my other sim families. 
Or the books even show up in the community library.  I know that they will end up in the library of the town they are in at that time, but can they be added in later games?
When my sims join the book club I have had a couple of books show up in the mail box.  I have recognized the title and the name of the author, as I put that in the title.  Time Traders by Dimitri for example.  They were not members of that family, or even from a saved game with any connection, so it has surprised me to see the two of them show up. 

RESULTS:

I tried several different methods too see what would work, and any problems that can happen.

They all worked fine but here is the best and easiest way.  At least that is what I think is.


Build on a small lot (can use the edit town to get a small lot) a house, just basic, walls, floor, door and roof.  Add in a bookshelf.

Put books into the inventory of a sim.  Move the sim into the small house and put the books into the bookshelf. 

Move the sim out of the house and save the house to the bin. 

Place the house with the bookshelf in another game and save it to that game.  Best to make it a community lot, to keep someone from moving into it.

When you have a sim you want to have the books, change building back to residential and move the sim into the house.  Then, move the sim out and the bookshelf will be placed into the family inventory. 

If you move the sim in and have them add it to their personal inventory and move out, you will have the books, but if you want to move someone else from the town into the building to get copies, they won't be there.

To keep someone from moving into the house, as soon as you move out turn it back into a commercial building. 

I am figuring that you can do this with any family, take the saved library house to the game you are playing and move a family member into it with that families books.  Save them into a bookshelf and then move the sim out and the books will still be there; added to the other books written by other families. 

[Pam]

The only thing that comes to mind for me would be to order extra copies of the books and maybe use them as gifts to other Sims.  You could then switch to that family and move the book from the personal inventory and into a bookshelf in their home.  I haven't actually done this, so I don't know if it would really work.

[MarianT]

I don't think giving them as gifts would work. I've given a gift to a Sim just before adding the sim to my household, and when I look in that sim's inventory, the gift is gone.

Even after the Sim has written the book, getting subsequent copies is iffy. My Sim who was collecting books for the Townie DecaDynasty Challenge kept ordering copies of books that he'd written, but when they were picked up by another family member they disappeared. Putting them in the bookshelf would also make them disappear. Short answer is that the way you describe, Janna, is probably the only way it can happen.

[Janna]

Guess it is time to experiment and see what I find. Will tell here if I succeed or fail. 

[pallyndrome]

I can confirm that gifting items does not work. But one of twallan's mods allows you to transfer items between sims in the town - I have used it with success so far.

[Janna]

That's good to know, that his mods will let this be accomplished.  It would be a whole lot easier than what I have do.

I don't have any mods, checked and what I want my computer is can't handle it, so that leaves me with what I can do. 

I hate when my sims have the opportunity to read a set number of books and they keep picking up the same book.  I have to take it and put it in a chest so they will leave it alone.  Which then limits the books for the other members of the family to read. 
By getting the books my sims have written in other towns/games, such as the Lombardi who have 152 books, it gives me a lot more books for my sims to be read. 

I know that some of the challenges don't allow mods to be used, I don't know if this would be allowed, but it would give more books to chose from if allowed. 

[pallyndrome]

well, if you ever want to download the mod, here's a link to where I was discussing it with twallan and others on his site:

http://nraas.wikispaces.com/share/view/64070166