BookCrossing

So I was looking through my Goodreads shelves and updating the ones I own and the ones I don’t own on my shelves and I decided to finally look up what that BookCrossing ID thing meant. What I found was that BookCrossing is a website where you can custom print book plates with an ID number on it. This ID can be used to track where the book has gone over the years. You can even release your own books into the wild.

It looks like the idea behind this was to make a public library with a world wide community involvement instead of just a local community thing. There are also no due dates, or late fees. You can keep the book as long as you want and release it whenever, wherever, and to whoever you want. You can write reviews and do pretty much all of the same things with BookCrossing as you can with Goodreads. You can even connect BookCrossing to Goodreads. But with BookCrossing you can track books you release, read reviews on the books you release, or see where the book you found is from. It’s pretty cool.

I made a profile for it, and a custom book plate that is released for public purchase. (There are free book plates or ones you can purchase.) My BookCrossing profile is under tonks4life, I’m sure you can find me with that. I just thought it was a cool thing. If any of you do sign up for this site I believe they have a referrer section on the profile so feel free to add me to that!

Since I know a lot of people find me because of the book reviews I used to do I’ll point this out. This site seems like a really cool way to market or spread word about your books. If you have print copies that you’re trying to get reviewed or that you’re selling on your own personal website, or even if you have them in bookstores you might want to buy a few book plates and put them in your books. It might spread word faster and to more people. (Maybe ask permission before placing it in bookstore copies that are waiting to be sold.)

Anyway, have fun sharing your books! Or reading them. Whichever.