Over at Skeet’s blog the other day, I read about a group of friends she gathered with to “release books into the wild.” Now, I’ve got rooms upon rooms of books and, while I do love to hold on to certain volumes, I’ve been known to press books into the hands of visiting friends, to give bags of them to my in-laws, and to sell entire boxes of them on eBay just to make room for more.

Skeet’s got a better method: she’s a member of BookCrossing, a free site that encourages people to share books with strangers then lets both initial reader and subsequent ones share their thoughts on what they’ve read.

It’s really easy to get started. Pick a couple of books off of your shelves and click on my referral link. You’ll land on a page with instructions for registering to be a BookCrossing member. (It’s not the kind of referral where I make money off of you, but I get to call you friend if you use my link.)

Once you’re a member, you’ll learn about The Three Rs: Read, Register, Release. Let’s assume you’ve already read the book. Now register it with BookCrossing. Takes about two minutes, maybe a little more if you choose to make a comprehensive journal entry about your experience with the book (not mandatory, but a very cool thing to do.)

As soon as you get the book registered you’ll be given a unique BookCrossing ID number. Put this BCID inside the front cover of the book. There are labels on the site you can download, or you can just write the BCID along with a brief message if you prefer.

Then you “release” the book wherever you fancy: sitting next to one of the silk trees at your doctor’s office, or at the bowling alley, or even your corner bar. With the information you’ve written inside the cover, folks finding the book will know it’s theirs to take, read and enjoy. And to go online to find out what you’ve said about it, too! If they register themselves as a reader, you’ll be able to read their reviews and those of anyone else who reads and registers the book after it’s been re-released “into the wild.”

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007, 9:35 am   |   Blog bites  |  RSS feed Comments and pings are currently closed.