It’s Free, It’s Fun, It’s Full of Surprises

I recently joined Postcrossing to exchange postcards from around the world. It’s a great thing postcards from Malaysia to anywhere in the world is priced at a standard RM0.50. That’s really cheap compared to many other countries. Well, so far I’ve sent out 3 postcards, to Finland, Czech Republic, and USA, I guess my cards are having a good time travelling to where I’ve never been myself!

Anyways, this made me remember Bookcrossing.com. I joined bookcrossing back in 2004. At that time, I received a free book to start off, but I never really register or release any books. Maybe because I really didn’t have many books around. Well, today I decided to give it another try. I just finish reading this book by Iris Johansen. This book was actually given by a friend, so now I’m passing it on to the WILD.

How Bookcrossing.com works:
1) After I register myself, update my profile, find a book, register it. I will get a BCID, stand for BookCrossing ID. I either print it out as a label for the book or just handwrite. Well, for me I made a bookmark. On the book are the instructions for whoever finds the book, they will have to also sign up for BookCrossing and register the book there so that the initial owner (Me!) can track where the book has gone to.
2) So, I gotta make the book look like it’s not lost. What’s best to do is to put a sticky note on the cover before sending it to the wild, that attracts people’s attention to pick it up. Something like, “Hey, I’m not a lost book, look inside!” Something like that…
3) Decide where you want to leave the book. Preferrably someplace where there’s a lot of people around, like a mall, train station or something.
4) After releasing the book, you gotta write a release note on the BookCrossing site so that users can know where the book has been released, some people might purposely go and search for the book.

Very disappointingly, I searched the site for books released in Malaysia, and there’s only 6 books so far, and they are all in KL and one in Pulau Tioman. There used to be many people in Kuching as well, but seems like people have stopped wanting to share their books. It’s quite pointless to keep your books that have been read at home unless you have a library and people come to borrow your books. 😛 Well, most of the time I pass on my books to my sister if I find it really good, maybe after she reads I will release it. So, if you’re one of those with loads of books in your store that you were thinking of recycling it, join BookCrossing, share your books to all the book lovers across the globe.