Authors are always looking for new ways to get their books out and about. My lastest idea is to try Bookcrossing.
Bookcrossing is a system where books are ‘released into the wild’ aka left in public places for people to pick up. People will then (hopefully) log onto the website at www.bookcrossing.com, state where they picked it up and what they thought of it, before re-releasing it again.
The idea is that the book will pass through many, many hands. Most books don’t – one never knows if they will be picked up and read and kept, or whether they will be tossed straight in the bin by cleaners and never read.
The fantabulous marketing and publicity folk at HarperCollins were more than happy to come to the party on this, and gave me six books to use. I got a range of people around the country to agree to deliver a book somewhere in their city. So in the next couple of weeks, copies of Secret Ones will be appearing someone in Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane and Darwin. I left a copy in Garema Place, Civic last Friday night. No sign of it on the website yet, but maybe someone hasn’t read it yet :)
I hope that at least one copy goes on a fun journey around the place and we get lots of reports. It would be wonderful if more than one does.
If you want to keep track of it yourself, go to www.bookcrossing.com and search for Secret Ones.
Some might say that giving away free books defeats the purpose of publication – why would people buy the book? The thing is, the biggest marketing tool there is in the world of publishing is word-of-mouth. The six people who first pick up the book may well read it and not pass it on, but if they each tell a couple of friends and those friends go and buy the book and they enjoy it and tell more friends…
If they do pass the book on, then tell friends about this cool book (or even go buy a copy themselves) then we get those sales, and the next person to do it might do the same.
Regardless, these books are part of the marketing/publicity budget for the book and don’t count against my sales, so they might as well get out of the storeroom at HC office and into the world for people to enjoy.