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BookCrossing in Kalamazoo, Michigan: Random Acts of Literary Kindness

by Zinta
July 14, 2005
At first glance, he doesn't seem the reading type. Markus Rutens, 23, with a small scar under his left eye and another just above the hairline, flexes a tattooed arm. A cross trimmed in blue expands across a biceps. "My faith gets me through tough times," he says. "Faith — and books. My saving grace."

But he falls silent when asked about those tough times which, he says firmly, are behind him now. No longer worthy of discussion. Instead, he lists titles of books that served as guideposts, vehicles of escape into brighter realms, enlightenment along his path: "I loved A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving… Salman Rushdie's Fury… Mary Shelley's FrankensteinOf Mice and Men by John Steinbeck… Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens…" And he reads the Bible every day, he says, a verse or two to keep him on track, maybe a little inspirational reading by Max Lucado.

A well-read paperback copy of Fools Die by Mario Puzo in his hand, Markus joins the small group gathered at Old Burdick's Bar & Grill in the Radisson Hotel, downtown Kalamazoo. It's a varied group, ages ranging from mid teens to midlife or beyond, male and female, occupations — as unfolding conversation reveals — including a student, an interior decorator, a public relations director, an editor and writer, and a psychiatrist specializing in women's and family issues. The one common bond they all have is their love of books and their willingness to share them.

This is a meeting of BookCrossing members or would-be members in Kalamazoo. Similar meetings, called "Meet-Ups," take place all across the country, all across the world. Some will show up just once, to say hello and pass along a book they've read and enjoyed to someone else. Some enjoy belonging to something akin to a book club, gathering on a regular basis, once a month or so, to discuss what they have read and offer recommendations. Other members never attend a meeting. Like shadowy figures without faces or names, they simply leave their books in public places — on a bench in the park, on a seat at the train station, on a table next to an empty mug at the coffee shop, in a church pew, in a doctor's waiting room, on a bus, perched on a fence post outside a neighbor's house — anywhere, everywhere that anyone might find it, pick it up, scan its pages, and take it home to read. Designating the special status of these stealthily left behind books is nothing more than a label inside the book's cover, or on the cover itself:

"Howdy! Ciao! Hola! Guten Tag! Bonjour! I'm registered at BookCrossing.com! I'm a very special book. You see, I’m traveling around the world making new friends. I hope I've made another one in you. If so, please go to www.bookcrossing.com, where you can make a brief journal entry with my BCID number. You will see where I've been, and my old friends will be happy to know I'm safe here in your hands. Then keep my dream alive — READ & RELEASE me!"

Markus has just such a label adhered to the inside cover of his copy of Fools Die, and he leaves it on a leather chair facing the big screen television in Old Burdick's when he leaves at evening's end. No one notices. At least, not yet.

But he doesn't leave empty-handed. Another member of the group, Michigan writer J. Conrad Guest, has handed him a novel — his own. For many writers, BookCrossing is not only a means of enjoying books, but also promoting books they have authored, helping to spread the word-of-mouth that can be a crucial means to marketing a first time author's work. Markus tucks January's Paradigm under his arm and departs. Once home, he will make a journal entry on his home computer at the BookCrossing website to note that he has picked up the book.

"As a relative unknown, certainly outside of my own community," J. Conrad Guest says, watching the younger man go, "an idea like BookCrossing can be an excellent means of developing a fan base, of writer connecting to reader. Although I don't make any royalties from passing my books out to people free of charge, it can be a worthwhile investment for the long run. I hope he enjoys it," he adds.

BookCrossing, the idea and the website, was conceived in March 2001 by Ron Hornbaker, chief executive officer of a Kansas City, Missouri software development company, and his wife Kaori. The website was launched about a month later, with about 100 new members signing up per month, until one year later, when an article in Book magazine started a wave of media attention that now has approximately 350 new members signing up each day. Almost 300,00 BookCrossers (members of the site) have registered 1.4 million books from all age and demographic categories, the largest being women age 25-45, with members from over 150 countries from Antarctica to Zimbabwe. The United States has the highest number of members, followed by Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Spain and Germany. Membership is free, requiring nothing more than signing up with either one's real name or a "screen" name if anonymity is preferred.

The three R's of BookCrossing, as the site explains, are:
1. Read a good book
2. Register the book on the BookCrossing.com site to obtain a BCID (BookCrossing ID) number and label the book (labels may be ordered from the Supply Store or printed from the site free of charge)
3. Release the book "into the wild"

By listing their email addresses on the confidential portion of their profiles, members receive notices each time someone "catches" one of their book. In this way they can see where their books have been, and are alerted each time their book is picked up by a new reader.

The goal, according to Hornbaker, is "to make the whole world a library." Along with promoting a book exchange of global proportions, Hornbaker hopes to encourage literacy and a love of reading. The site offers programs to benefit authors and publishers, working with such major publishing houses such as Scholastic, Random House, HarperCollins, Harcourt, and Simon & Schuster.

"I can't say that I am in favor of this type of free book exchange," says Todd Wiley, member of the Kalamazoo Writers' Meetup Group. He works in quality assurance for a local pharmaceutical company, where he met colleague Chris Gidman, software engineer and organizer of the writers' group. The two offer dissenting viewpoints on the BookCrossing phenomena, even as they both agree to participate and agree that, had they already published books of their own, they too would "release" their books "into the wild" to find and develop new fans.

"It's not that I can't see the value of such a concept for promotional purposes," Todd says. "But I have ownership issues of this kind of handling of intellectual property, of creative content. If it is illegal to download music on the Internet, it should be illegal to pass along a writer's intellectual property without his or her permission. I won't argue the promotional benefits of the BookCrossing idea. But that is not relevant, whether it is or is not beneficial to anyone. Relevant are concerns about individual property rights, the right of an author to determine how his creative property is handled. That decision should not be taken away from the writer."

Todd is not alone in his concerns. At least one internationally known author has posted her disagreement with the BookCrossing concept on the site in a public forum available to all BookCrossing members. Whether a concern with lost royalties or mishandling of her work, the author requested, with some vehemence, that BookCrossers cease and desist passing along her books.

BookCrossing answers thus: "Publishers and authors: listen up! We know you may be concerned about all this book-sharing talk, and what it might do to your sales. You may be surprised to know that many, many publishers and authors are big BookCrossing fans. They've seen the paradoxical value in encouraging the sharing of books. In fact, if one were to compare the number of people who buy books based on seeing book reviews as the books exchange hands, to the number of people who actually find free books, we can assure you there are far more buyers than finders."

"I am hoping to make a presence for myself as an emerging writer, so that eventually readers will go to bookstores looking for my titles," says J. Conrad Guest. He has "released" four copies of January's Paradigm so far under the BookCrossing label, and intends to release more. "I've left a copy at South Street Cigar when I visit for my Saturday morning smoke. That one appears to be 'lost' in the wild, and I realize many of the books never make another appearance on the site again. But there's risk in any type of marketing venture. Maybe at some point the book will show up again."

Because so many books do "disappear" into the wild (only 20-25% show up on the site again as "caught"), many have taken to passing books directly into the hands of a willing reader rather than leaving the books in a public place. The other three copies of January's Paradigm have been handed by the author directly into the hands of a reader, with a promise to make a journal entry on the BookCrossing site.

Sarah Joshi, public relations director for the Homebuilder's Association of Greater Kalamazoo and a member of BookCrossing for nearly a year, accepts a copy of the novel from its author cheerfully. "What fun!" she says. "I've belonged to book clubs before, and with time they have disbanded. We are a busy society. I don’t always have the time to read a book, take an evening to attend a book club meeting to discuss it, and keep up with a group's demands. But BookCrossing gives me the ability to read and pass a book on at my own pace. I can hold onto a book as long as I like. When I have the time, I can log onto the site, make an entry, and be done with it. I appreciate the convenience."

Around the table at Perkins' Family Restaurant on Sprinkle Road, where the Kalamazoo Writers' Meetup Group meets every other week, Chris Gidman holds the other "wild" copy of January's Paradigm. His interest, he says, is to work to benefit Kalamazoo area writers, and he looks forward to reading and passing on the book — to his friend and colleague, Todd Wiley. He shares Todd's concerns about creative property ownership rights, "but in this case, I have the author's permission," he notes.

"I would like to see authors given the right to label their books as 'not for lending' or marked in some similar fashion," Todd says. "An author should be given that choice." Smiling, he admits his views on individual rights and private property ownership, including creative property, stem from a book he has read — Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, an author who gained international fame with her many books, both fiction and nonfiction, developing and arguing for a system based on what she called the Objectivist philosophy.

And so books make a difference. Dotted across the globe, readers and writers discuss, argue, debate, and learn from books. Connections are made, from one mind to another, from one book to another, from writer to reader.

An email appears in the inbox of J. Conrad Guest. A copy of January's Paradigm has been logged in as "caught" and is currently being read… by a young man named Markus Rutens, already drawn in by the opening paragraph:

I stepped out of the dark, smoky habitat of Earl's Place. My need was great. I adjusted the collar of my trench coat, thumbed the drooping brim of my fedora, and drew in a lungful of the damp, cool night air…


This article was first published in Encore magazine, Kalamazoo, Michigan, March 2005.

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