World Book Night (part 3)

Welcome to yet another post about WBN….

I received an email from WBN informing me that because my books had failed to arrived, I could distribute any books my collection point held, which had failed to be claimed by anyone else. So… a week after WBN I took collection of 48 copies of Life of Pi.

I felt really pleased to finally have some books and couldn’t believe that throughout my daily enquiries to the library regarding the whereabouts of my books, there was an unclaimed box sat there the whole time! It seemed such a waste that somebody wouldn’t collect them, especially when so many reserve givers - like me - were desperately trying to find books. I wonder which collection point my books ended up in? Hopefully they were distributed by another WBN giver.

As mentioned in previous WBN posts, each book should be registered online and have an identification number, allowing the books’ journeys from reader to reader, to be followed. I didn’t receive any WBN numbers, so I registered each book with Bookcrossing. Needless to say, it took a l-o-n-g time! I also printed out stickers to put on the books, informing the recipient that the journey of the book could be tracked through this website. So far, two days after all the books have been distributed, nobody has logged onto the site, but hopefully they will soon.

As I work in a school, I thought it’d be nice to distribute the books to staff in surroundings schools. I divided the books up and delivered them to 7 different schools in the borough. The books were left unattended in either the staff room or library and staff were able to help themselves. I’m pleased to say each school ran out of WBN books in less than a day.

It feels really good knowing people quickly snapped up the books, and the various reactions have been interesting. One person thought it was a book swap, another person couldn’t believe the books were free gifts. That made me a little sad actually and it’s indicative of society today that you don’t very often get something for nothing. If there were more random acts of kindness, the world would be a much happier place.

Although my individual experience of WBN was frustratingly dogged with administration and logistical errors, I found being involved very rewarding. I’m really proud that I took part and helped to spread the joy of reading. I’d love to do so again next year and hopefully the initiative should run much more smoothly second time round.

It's been reported by The Bookseller that the WBN giveaway has increased sales of the selected authors' books. How wonderful to see books having a renaissance!

I’ve asked around but only one person I know received a WBN book. I’d love to hear how/where they were distributed, but there are still communication issues with the WBN site so this information isn’t as widely available as I’d have hoped. Does anybody have a tale to tell? Did anybody reading this post receive a book? In the true spirit of WBN, share the story...