On Saturday, 5 March 2011, two days after World Book Day, with the full support of the Publishers Association, the Booksellers Association, the Independent Publishers Guild, the Reading Agency with libraries, World Book Day, the BBC and RTE, one million books will be given away by an army of passionate readers to members of the public across the UK and Ireland.
The book give-away will comprise 40,000 copies of each of the 25 carefully selected titles, to be given away by 20,000 ‘givers’, who will each distribute 48 copies of their chosen title to whomever they choose on World Book Night. The remaining books will be distributed by World Book Night itself in places that might otherwise be difficult to reach, such as prisons and hospitals.
Website for World Book Night
Blog post questioning World Book Night – WORLD BOOK NIGHT – MISGUIDED AND MISJUDGED?
Nice idea, but…
>When a Premier League football match may cost north of £50 for 90 minutes of “entertainment” how can anyone say a book that will last considerably longer and provide much more depth is worth so much less.< Because people think so. Just because you think a book is worth £x doesn't mean that other people will agree with you. It is mad, we will pay for coffee, pay for mp3's and app's on our smartphones but we don't spend the same money on books. But that's a personal decision. And this is why many people don't read normally, but also why things like Tescos selling books at a loss happens. They are getting people into reading. Yes it's devaluing the value, but if that person isn't going to buy the book UNLESS it is that cheap it's not like you've actually lost a sale in the first place. Now if you are not getting your fair share from the book being sold to the supermarket in the first place then that's something you need to discuss with your publisher. It seems that many people need to get over the idea that the book is anything more than a product to a lot of people. There will always be a good proportion of the population that will buy books, whether that be the latest Dan Brown, JK Rowling or Dan Cruikshank. But there are also many many people that only get a fiction book when they are at the airport, when it's Christmas etc. You won't get them reading normally unless you get them interested by cheap or yes free books. The problem is does that translate into new sales? I'd say it depends on who gets them. Some people might read that book, go 'oh I like this, what else have they done' and pop onto Amazon to buy copies of their back catalogue. But there are also people that will read it and that's it. You can't make people like books more than watching the X Factor, you can only give the opportunity to change. The rest sadly, is up to them. I don't think that some people will just dive into books because they are given a copy of Fingersmith. What if it turns out they don't like that sort of book but would like some sci-fi? It does sound very likely that the books that are going to be given out will end up with the sort of people that would be in the first set, the people that would read books anyway. And that is where the lost opportunity is more likely to hit in my mind.