Guerrilla Marketing – Give Librarians eBooks

Authors, this post is for you.

Some of you know that in two weeks over 10,000 librarians and other library industry professionals will be descending upon Denver for the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting. It has been a handful of years since I have been to an ALA meeting and I am beyond excited to see some of my favorite people again.

I am going to revive an experiment I tried at RWA three years ago. I want to give indie authors the ability to offer ebook versions of their books to the super heroes that have the buying power to acquire actual copies for readers: Librarians.

Indie authors, I have a fun and free way for you to get your books in the hands of librarians who can read them, review them, and buy copies for their libraries.

Here is how it works:

My friend Jason Griffey made a device which creates its own wifi signal, allows users to log on to the signal, and then download any content on the device. It is completely open source and completely awesome. Libraries and educators around the world are using it to distribute books and class materials and to reach students in new ways.

Everyone knows ARCs and free books are awesome to get at conferences. My LibraryBox will be a free, easy way for you to give e-copies out to librarians attending ALA Midwinter. Anytime I am at a conference event, I will have the LibraryBox on. Anyone with a wireless device can log on to the wifi signal the box creates and download books to read and review.

LibraryBox keeps tabs on how many of each item is downloaded, but it does not track individual users due to privacy. At the end of the conference, I will post the top 10 downloads. If you are an author or a publisher and you would like to participate, here are some FAQs you might want to know, be aware of, take heed of:

  • In order to participate in this project, you must be the digital rights holder for the works you send me.
  • This is for traditionally (with a publisher) or indie (self) published works. WIPs or manuscripts will not be accepted. Works of any length or genre are accepted.
  • The Midwinter file on my LibraryBox will be deleted after the conference. This means that after the conference, all the copies I have will be deleted from the boxen itself and my computer.
  • All books for this project will be in a folder marked “Midwinter 2018” on the boxen listed in alpha order by author’s last name.
  • Files should be in easily readable formats, like epub or pdf.
  • Do include your author website, mailing list, or other links in your file.
  • There will be a page on this blog listing all the participating authors and their websites so attendees can take a peek and so you can brag about it.
  • I will in no way use the books sent to me for profit or in any way not specified in this blog post.

Interested? Send me a copy of your book to mboule at gmail dot com. I will send a confirmation email when I receive your file.

If there are enough books, I will put them in genre or subgenre folders.

Questions? Ask them below.