World Book Night: one million free books to give away - have you been selected?

RuthMarianna

I gave my books by putting them in cafes in the town centre and explained to customers as I did so. My husband had a bad experience while waiting for me with the bag of books. He was inquiesitioned by a secuity guard in the shopping precinct and another one in the library who both said he should have applied for permission even though he stood doing nothing. The librarian got involved saying that Derbyshire had chosen not to get involved with this. We now both feel like terrorists with one even wanting to search the bag. My husband suffers ill health and this treatment has upset him a lot.

jetfighter

ljonski and I have just given away our books in about 35 minutes, though there was one point where I was a bit worried we'd be there all night! We stood outside our local Sainsbury's convenience store with a table and some balloons supplied by LJ.

I'm glad we had permission as there were a couple of police officers nearby and we could've very easily been "moved along" if Sainsbury's hadn't given us permission. Sorry to hear your husband had a bad experience RuthMarianna.

We did have a homeless guy approach us who seemed peeved that we were giving away free books and not free money but luckily he didn't hassle us for long. Oh and some kids who made fun of LJ's disguise. But they were harmless really.

All in all I think we did well, shifted the books very quickly and hopefully those who took the books will enjoy them and pass them on. I've registered my books on BookCrossing.com as well as writing in the WBN numbers so hopefully there'll be some comments on the Bookcrossing/WBN websites soon.

Good luck to everyone else giving out their books.

seashore321

I gave all my books away very easily mostly within a few miles of where I live . I gave all the books to people that work in the caring environment i.e. care homes, disabled, and hospitals .

I did not realise how many people in the small village that I live in worked in the care environment. Also to people that raise money for charity. Most of the people that I gave them to had heard something about World book nite on the radio.( Mostly through Graham Norton.) All were absolutely thrilled to receive something for free. A lot were excited by the fact that they could log on and find out where there book could end up.!

Thus is one aspect which I feel was not promoted enough by World book nite (IMHO)

However, however much I have promoted this I still cannot log on to the world book nite page. To log in my books. So they could all go into oblivion which would be a shame

However, I have had conversations with people about books and life that I would never had before and if I could log onto the Book site web then I would put it in there!!

My little question is?
If the world book nite is not workin then I have just put everything I have thought on Martins website so maybe we need to put the stuff on here so Martin can forward it to them!!

ferrety

Hi,

I have just spent an hour giving my books away at my local Tesco, I had there permission although the duty manager knew nothing about WBN.
I really had to convince some people that they were completly free, some avid readers had not heard of the event at all while most had heard of it through the radio.

I felt that we could have done with an cheap id badge, a fun t shirt or other cheap promo items so that I could easily be associatied with WBN and not some random person trying to give out books.

I did enjoy the experience though and would happily do it again : )

lesliejack

I gave all mine out in our little ironmongers shop as the customers came in. Really didnt think the burly builders would be interested, but I was so wrong. Most had heard about it on the radio, and were delighted to get a free book. It possibly helped that I was giving out books by local lad Alan Bennet.
At the same time we were giving free tool catalogues, and despite it being a blokey tool shop, the Alan Bennet was far more popular than the catalogues!
Had a fun day with it.

Reverbe

only managed to get rid of 6 of my books. Tried to hand them out but nobody wanted them so had to resort to bookcrossing.leaving them in cafes and on the tube

ljonski

James Bond and Pu55y Galore (aka Ljonski and Jetfighter) get ready to give their books away at 5pm yesterday in Hull.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60275660@N03/

seashore321

Hi there, can anyone log onto the webite to put their ID numbers in as I still cannot and have not had an asnwer from world books yet? Activation code still does not work.

Reverbe

seashore I cannot access the site at all. i was not sent an activation code and cant register as it says my password is already registered. when i ask for my password to be sent again ti sends it to someone elses email address.

I have done what others do and resorted to registering and logging the books IDs on bookcrossing.com

cpickers

My housemate picked up a free copy of Toast for us at the wonderful Cocoa in Sheffield this weekend. Will be passing it on when we've read it! Really pleased :j