Complementary World Book Night again - #WBNextra

Well, hey-ho: here I am, blogging about World Book Night again. Why the hey-honess? Because I regret that I have to repeat myself. Last year, I proposed a simpler way to achieve the same aims. WBN aims to increase readership - fabulous! The Complementary WBN aims to increase readership while also boosting book sales, and directly helping authors (not just the prescribed 25), their publishers and agents, and bookshops. Fabulouser, in my view.

The Complementary WBN idea (which I'll explain in a minute) created so much support last year that I found myself on Newsnight, and quoted in many newspaper articles. In fact, the lovely Julia Kingsford, CEO of WBN, asked to meet me later to discuss what could be done the next year. We met. And, as far as I can see, absolutely nothing was taken on board. I'm sorry, Julia, and I'm grateful to you for talking to me, but I just don't think I got through to you at all. I have logged that as one of my failures.

After I blogged last year, and after WBN was over, I was contacted by a wide variety of people high up in the book industry, who had not been able to speak out, who favoured my simpler, cheaper, more heart-warming idea. They all hoped I would do it again. Some of them asked where I was going to get funding. I have no funding. The idea at this stage needs no funding. That's one reason why it is a good idea.

Last week, I was chatting to someone in publishing, and she said words to this effect: "Sadly, it seems that the whole industry has given up and is simply going along with WBN. I hope people follow your idea though!"

The problems with WBN (bearing in mind that I love the motivation and hate having to knock it)  

• It's unnecessarily expensive. 
• It's absurdly unnecessarily complicated.
• It involves a prescribed list. (I don't object to the books on the list. I object to there being a list at all.)
• I can't see how it helps authors or publishing (except the authors and publishers of the prescribed books.)
• It does not directly produce book-sales, which bookshops badly need.
• It involves the special printing of a million books, rather than selling a million copies of normally printed books.
• Therefore it is wasteful of time, money and resources.

Last year on the night itself, Twitter was full of messages such as, "Where can I get a free copy of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie?" No! If people want to read books for nothing, they should use a public library - that's what a library is for and anything that undermines that does not get my vote. This was not the aim of the initiative. 

Don't get me wrong: as before, I LOVE the energy behind the idea of giving away so many books. (Though someone always pays when something is offered "free" and I think many people fail to notice who pays.) I HATE that I have to raise a voice of any negativity against it. Again. I LOVE the enthusiasm of the organisers and the givers, and the stories of happy recipients. But I find myself shaking my head at the shocking waste of money, energy and time, when our industry so badly needs a commercial boost. The same aims could have been achieved more simply and at less cost to the industry. Actually, with gain to the industry.

What is Complementary World Book Night?

Simple! Any person buys any book of his or her choice from any bookshop of his or her choice and gives it to any person or organisation of his or her choice, after writing a simple message in the front. My suggested message is: "A Complementary World Book Night book, bought and given in the spirit of World Book Night 2012, bought from ****** bookshop. Enjoy!" And you can add any other message and your name if you wish.

WBN is 23rd April, so that's the target date for doing this.

How lovely it is to give a book. To give a book to someone who might love it, who might not otherwise have read it, or who might not have read anything, who might not have access to books. Indeed, it is. But how much better it feels to give a book that you have bought, thereby helping your chosen author, your chosen bookshop and your chosen reader.

If you'd like to do this, please comment below. Tell me where you plan to buy your book, what it might be and who or what you would like to give it to. And spread the word!

Remember, this is not an ALTERNATIVE to WBN. It's complementary, extra, a bonus. Do both if you wish! The hashtag on Twitter will be #WBNextra.

WHAT DID YOU DO FOR BOOKS THIS WEEK? SHOUT IT HERE!

Judging from the response on Twitter under #worldbooknight, and in private messages throughout this week, many people have joined my simple, positive contribution to WBN, which seeks to benefit all parts of the book chain: authors, publishers and agents, bookshops and readers, in a non-prescriptive, cost-effective, all-inclusive, generous way. Amazingly, I ended up being invited to talk about this on Newsnight - though that piece was so strangely edited that in fact you missed a) what they had assured me they'd leave in (my very positive feelings about WBN) and b) the thing they'd actually asked me to speak about - the complementary World Book Night idea. (Not "alternative, as people keep saying. I have never once suggested people shouldn't do both.)

Over the last few days, I've had a lot of well-known writers and many booksellers contacting me and agreeing that this simple idea of buying and giving a book would have been a wonderful format for WBN, a format which no one could have disagreed with. And a lot of them have expressed the hope that it might be an official part of WBN next year. That would be fantastic, but not in my hands.

But today I want simply to ask you: if you did go for my suggestion, what book did you buy and who did you give it to or who are you going to give it to? Please pass this question round and ask everyone to come here and say what they did.You may have some amusing or inspiring stories of what happened when you gave your book - tell us!

And, on behalf of everyone who wants the book trade to be healthy and who cares about authors and our ability to keep writing, thank you to all those who bought a book in the spirit of World Book Night 2011. Every little bit helps and what you did helped writers and readers, and everyone else in that chain. Thank you!

OUR WORLD BOOK NIGHT

World Book Night is an initiative which aims to give away a million books in one night - next Saturday, 5th March. I love the idea of promoting reading - of course - and I'm not at all against giving things away, but I admit that I think there were better ways to give away a million books than this particular scheme. Simpler ways, ways which would benefit authors, bookshops and publishers. All of them. Whereas this initiative not only does not benefit them all, but has some knock-on costs.

However, the other day I had a friendly meeting with the organiser, Jamie Byng of Canongate Books, and bookseller Vanessa Robertson, owner of the fabulous Edinburgh Bookshop, who has been vocal in her reservations about the delivery of WBN, and I wanted to do something to contribute to the spirit of the venture in a way that I can be fully comfortable with.

Let me first explain about WBN.

The WBN venture chooses 25 books, arranges for 40,000 copies of each to be printed as a special edition by their publishers, with royalties voluntarily waived by their authors, and asks 20,000 volunteer givers to choose one title, receive 48 copies of it and give them away in an appropriate manner on the night of March 5th. My concerns are that the parlous nature of the book industry, falling revenues for booksellers, publishers and authors, and the constant erosion of the value of what we do, are not best improved by giving away one million especially printed books, which would have retailed at around £9million if sold in the normal way. Of course, there will be some benefits - crikey, imagine if there weren't! The benefits to some might even be huge; let's hope they are, even if the costs are high.

I just think there were better ways, which could have stronger results at less cost to a struggling industry.

After Vanessa had blogged about this, many people agreed with her, though some didn't, naturally. There are also many people who have muttered about WBN and not said anything publicly. I added a comment to Vanessa's blog post, amongst a load of other comments. Mine was the only one picked up by the Guardian and quoted in a subsequent newspaper article. The article said I was "happy to air objections" but I don't feel particularly happy objecting, actually. I'd rather do something positive.

So, rather than ignoring WBN, I have a contribution, and I'd like you all to join me. Of course, I'd also like you to support World Book Night in whatever ways you wish, including the intended one, but this is mine and I hope you like it.

Our World Book Night

One day between now and next Saturday (March 5th), let's each of us buy a book, preferably from an actual bookshop, or direct from a publisher. Any book. Write inside it: "Given in the spirit of World Book Night, March 5th 2011 and bought from [insert name of shop] - please enjoy and tell people about it." And give it to someone. Anyone. A friend or stranger, a library or school or doctor's surgery or anything.

Then go home, and enjoy whatever you're reading yourself.

It's very simple and everyone wins: the bookshop, the recipient, the author, the publisher, the agent, even you, the giver, because you'll enjoy the frisson of pleasure that comes from giving. There are no losers. That's why I like it. And I'll be buying my book from The Edinburgh Bookshop.

One more thing: please pledge in a comment below that you are going to do this, and spread the word. If even fifty people do this, that's fifty books that wouldn't have been bought. Call me simple, but I like that idea a lot.