World Book Night is a strange and wonderful thing. Every year, a bunch of people sign up to give out 20 copies of a book to a bunch of people they’ve never met. I did this last year, and it was a blast. I lucked out. The list of potential books we could choose from included “The Phantom Tollbooth” and “Good Omens.” I gave out 20 copies of the latter. (How can you go wrong giving out Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett?)
Actually, the hardest parts of giving out 20 copies of anything is convincing the target of the following:
- It’s free
- It won’t cost your anything
- You are not required to convert to any religion (hard to do, given that I was giving out a book called ‘Good Omens’)
- There really is no monetary outlay necessary
- You (the recipient) are not required to join a cult
- You (the giver) is not insane
- Oh yeah, and it’s free
But, it kind of gets to be a game. How short can you make your patter? You have about 7 seconds before someone walks away, assuming they paused at all. More likely, you’re going to have to do at least a little bit of chasing, without seeming creepy.
See? Fun!
Anyway, it’s getting to be that time of year again, when World Book Night 2014 is looking for a bunch of nutjobs fine people to hand out books in April. The list of books from which you can choose is available here, and the guidelines for being a giver and the application can be found here.
Go! Apply! It’s fun!
EEP! I was sitting here forming my semi-annual request for book recommendations… and there was THIS out there?!!
Oh… *reads post* not quite what I imagined, but also fun.
So… WHERE did you go to give out your 20 books? It strikes me that “no malls and no retail establishments” means you can’t do it at a coffee shop or a farmer’s market or pretty well anyplace but the local community center or the library…
Or the metro… that’d be weird…
I did, in fact, go to one of the county’s rec centers. I have a couple of other friends who have done it. I know one person just carried her books in her bag and randomly gave them out throughout the day on the sidewalk.