Book Crossing

It's taking Amazon ages to reveal that yes, copies of my book are actually available to buy and yes, the books are with the distributor and available for dispatch and so on. In the meantime, books are available from Salt Publishing and Waterstones and I've been thinking about ways to send some copies out in the world. I've given several books away in recent weeks and I've been trying to think of something different. Last night I discovered the Book Crossing website and I've decided to send one copy of my book on a little journey.

The idea of Book Crossing is that you label a book and then give it away. You can pass it on to a friend or a stranger (or a strange friend or a friendly stranger). This is called a “controlled release", because you know the destination of your book’s next stop. Alternately, you can release a book into the wild - on a park bench, in a train station, on the table in your favorite coffee shop, anywhere it’s likely to be caught by another reader. When another reader finds the book, they can enter the BCID on BookCrossing.com and report that it’s been caught. Journal entries about the book should allow you to see where it is, who's reading it now, and follow where it goes next. There are currently over 850,000 active BookCrossers who have collectively registered almost seven million books which are traveling around 130 countries.

It sounds like a great idea. My book is all wrapped up for its journey to Brighton tomorrow. I wonder where it will go next?

Top image from the Book Crossing Website.