In this issue...

• UK's Terry and Gaby to talk bookcrossing tomorrow
• international magazine orders will now earn wings
• global membership stats
• last week's champion referrer award
• holiday-edition Release Kit makes perfect gift
• SSM11

Great news for our UK members (and members-to-be): BookCrossing will be featured on the Terry and Gaby show in the UK on Five TV tomorrow, Friday the 5th, at 11:00 am! (For the uninitiated, I've been told Terry and Gaby is comparable in format and popularity with our own Regis and Kelly show.) Here's a link to the show's website:

http://www.five.tv/programmes/terryandgaby/

They're toying with the idea of making a regular BookCrossing segment on the show, so if you like what they do, please use the Contact form on their website and show your support. If they see lots of interest in BookCrossing it can only help in growing the movement over there. Here's the link - bookmark it now, then please remember to use it after the show airs in the UK (around 6 AM Central Standard Time on Friday):

http://www.five.tv/programmes/terryandgaby/contact/

Finally, be sure to tune in and let us know how the show goes in our forums - I'm anxious to hear about it.


international magazine orders will now earn wings

Our BookCrossing Newsstand (http://www.magazania.com/bookcrossing) offers 1,500 magazine titles, at the lowest possible rates, with 30% of the subscription rate going to support BookCrossing.com! Simply by subscribing to or renewing a magazine through our site, you will be supporting your favorite online community. Magazines also make great gifts for all, and any gift subscription will be accompanied by a card in the mail to the recipient.

We now offer international customers subscription options, too. And don't forget - any subscription will earn you your Wings!


global membership stats

Here's the latest breakdown of BookCrossing members by country...

Top 10 All-Time

USA	100,861 (53%)
CANADA	14,722 (8%)
UNITED KINGDOM	12,346 (6%)
ITALY	9,764 (5%)
GERMANY	9,495 (5%)
SPAIN	7,817 (4%)
AUSTRALIA	5,685 (3%)
PORTUGAL	2,486 (1%)
NETHERLANDS	2,321 (1%)
FRANCE	2,118 (1%)

Top 10 Last Week

USA	808 (42%)
SPAIN	327 (17%)
GERMANY	115 (6%)
UNITED KINGDOM	101 (5%)
CANADA	91 (5%)
AUSTRALIA	78 (4%)
ITALY	49 (3%)
SWITZERLAND	44 (2%)
FRANCE	34 (2%)
PORTUGAL	23 (1%)

As you can see, Spain and Germany are still on the move, and Switzerland is joining the top 10! Let's see how the UK does during the next week after the Terry and Gaby feature.


last week's champion referrer award

Since the last newsletter, our champion new member referrer was alsomama from Seattle. A member since August 2002, alsomama has registered 626 books all-time, has referred 163 (!) new members all-time, 24 of whom joined BookCrossing.com in the last week!

You can visit her bookshelf here:

http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/alsomama

We'll be sending the winner a $50 gift certificate from our BookCrossing Supply Store at http://secure.bookcrossing.com/store, your source for Release Kits, Bookplate Labels, Bookmarks, Sticky-notes, or Stamps. And of course Wings will be earned with the order.

Want to win the $50 prize next week? Get busy referring people! Our Tell-a-Friend form is the best place to start:

http://www.bookcrossing.com/tellafriend


holiday-edition Release Kit makes perfect gift

Got any readers on your holiday shopping list? Maybe friends or family you'd like to convert to BookCrossing? Well, just in time for the holidays, we're offering a Holiday Bookplate Sampler kit that makes a perfect gift! With enough supplies to label 75 books, the kit includes a 25-pack of our current 6th Edition Bookplates (Please read us a story), a 25-pack of our last 5th Edition Bookplates (Poultry in Motion - we've got a small reserve of these very popular Bookplates), a 25-pack of our original non-marring labels (great for valuable books), 75 Bookmarks, 75 Sticky-notes, and to top it off, a BookCrossing Stamp. Oh yeah, and free shipping to the US. :)

When you shop at our online store, you'll see we have a new feature so you can mark an order as a "gift," so that the packing slip will display your greeting message, and will not display any dollar amounts.

So, save almost $20 and make someone very, very happy at the same time! We guarantee shipping on this and other items to arrive by December 24 if ordered before December 17th, at which time this special deal will end. Here's the link to our secure online store:

https://secure.bookcrossing.com/store/product.asp?product=95

Thank you for your continued support of BookCrossing!

Are you an artist? If you'd like your art to be featured on a future Bookplate series, please contact us at http://www.bookcrossing.com/contact. In exchange for the considerable exposure you'll get here and in the future on those 50,000 traveling books, we ask for only the original artwork, which we'll auction to further help support BookCrossing.


SSM11

Last week's SSM10 (releasing books in animal shelters) had our members everywhere going to the dogs (and cats). Read all the SSM10 reports in our forum, here:

http://www.bookcrossing.com/forumsearch2/?content=SSM10

This week's SSM11 was suggested by ppagano from Palmetto Bay, Florida, in a forum post. I've heard about several successful releases using this method, so I encourage you to try it. So, without further ado, here's SSM11:

• RELEASE ZONE: Movie rental store.
• RELEASE METHOD: Release a book behind the movie to which it's related in some way. (The obvious case is that the movie was based on the book, but let's see if anyone makes other creative connections.) If all goes as planned, a movie shopper will pick up the movie, see the book, and should have enough interest in it to catch, read and journal it. And maybe a few movie-watchers will rekindle their interest in books thanks to your efforts!
• RELEASE TIME: Anytime this weekend, but doing it early Friday or Saturday evening will result in the best chance of a shopper finding it before the staff does.

The 10 Rules of Sunday Sunset Missions:

1. Don't talk about SSMs!
2. Don't talk about SSMs! (for Project Mayhem fans)
3. Be on time! You can get the exact sunset time from http://www.weather.com/.
4. Label the books properly. At the minimum, this means a sticky-note on the outside making it clear that the book is FREE and NOT LOST (don't write anything on the outside to cause others alarm!), and a good, descriptive label inside the cover explaining BookCrossing and including the BCID for the book.
5. If possible, choose a book with content appropriate to the release location.
6. If possible, print out one of the press articles from http://www.bookcrossing.com/press and include it with the book (the Utne Reader or Reader's Digest articles work well).
7. Take pictures! Those of you with digital cameras, try to take a picture of the release zone with books, upload it with your journal entry, and make a post with the journal entry link in the SSM forum at http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum2/21.
8. Be safe! Use your common sense, and don't do anything to endanger persons or property.
9. Pay attention to the media the following day or two, try to note any mention of the SSM, and post such mentions to the SSM forum.
10. And finally, have fun!

As always, Happy 'Crossing!

Ron Hornbaker
Founder and Editor, BookCrossing.com


ps. Remember that the monthly BookCrossing Meetup happens next Tuesday, December 9th, at 7:00 PM in your corner of the world! Make sure you go - they're informal, fun, and usually involve large amounts of caffeine. Here's the link:

http://bookcrossing.meetup.com/