A Message In A Bottle

The whole thing began with Stumble Upon. In a thread on the Italian forum, where we post the sites we stumble upon, lllsss came up with Oceangram, a lovely site where you can leave virtual messages for others to read. Well, releasing a book is quite like leaving a message in a bottle; no wonder eltano77 had the idea to use this site to "spread the word", an idea I liked. So I sent a message, too, offering a book to the first person who'd write me a PM via bookcrossing.com. Then testuggine asked if we could do this on a bigger scale-- not just the Italian BookCrossers but anyone who wanted to join in. That's how the idea of an International BookCrossing Message in A Bottle Day was born – a day when as many BookCrossers as possible should send a message in a bottle offering a book.

This is how it works:

• On September 1, 2006 go to the site www.oceangram.com.
  
• Send a message in a bottle in which you put the link to the book you want to offer as a RABCK. It could be something like this: Would you like to read this book? If you send me a PM via www.bookcrossing.com by the 30th of September 2006 and if your message reaches me first I will mail the book to you straight away. Then read it and release it!

  
  (A month seems quite fair to us, but, of course, it's up to you how long you want to keep your offer valid. In any way, we recommend to set a time limit, or you'll have to save the book forever! And you can always re-offer the book when the time is over.)
  

• It could help to write some instructions in your journal entry... why you do this, how to PM you, what BookCrossing is all about...
  
• Wait for someone to claim your book.
  
• Tell us about it in this forum thread.*

Obviously, you don't have to do it only on that day. Send a message in a bottle whenever you want, flood the ocean with your books! There are lots of potential BookCrossers out there who don't even know yet. Who knows? It could be you who shows them how wonderful it is to be a BookCrosser!

(*) There are a couple of other threads about Message in a Bottle Day here and here.

Recently Released

Recently Caught