...at least, "free" if you don't count the time, effort, bus fare,
and possibly admission fee to get to the release site in the first
place {wry grin}. If Ron (the founder) didn't want people to at
least have the option to try going book-hunting, he wouldn't have
added the whole hunting-page section, not to mention the release-
alert email option. The idea is not only to add an element of fun to
BCers who like the idea of trying to hunt for other BCers' wild
releases, but to tantalize non-BCers into watching the site and
perhaps joining up if they find a book.
There are BCers who would prefer that their wild books are found by
people who were just going about their business and were not actually
hunting for them; if you feel that way, you can either avoid making
release notes altogether, or make the release notes well after the
fact - that way the random passers-by will have a good shot at the
books before the release-alerts go out.
I have heard of situations - often involving mass releases - where
someone would follow the trail of release notes and collect lots of
books, and that's a bit offputting, but even in that case if the
books are well and thoroughly labeled they will travel eventually.
And just because someone does use the hunting pages to try and find a
specific book doesn't mean that they intend to keep it indefinitely,
anyway. Most probably, if they wanted free books to read (and if they
succeed in finding the wild BC books, which can be tricky!) they'll
pass the books along once they're done; and even if they just put 'em
on their shelves at home, the books will move eventually. Spouse will
have a yard sale, finder might sell a box of books on eBay, one of
the kids might take books off to school... and there's always my
favorite, the estate sale!
Given the completely random nature of wild-book releases - different
genres, different times and locations, different book-conditions,
etc. - I doubt that very many people use wild BC books in place of
normal book-purchases. Those people who do join BC to try to acquire
free books are more likely to send out lots of PMs asking people to
send books, rather than focusing on hunting wild releases, and in
those cases I hope that the people who get the requests always keep
in mind that nobody's required to mail books on demand. But that's a
separate issue from wild-releasing, book-hunting, or setting the
status to "PC"!
-GoryDetails
See the books I've set free at:
http://bookcrossing.com/referral/GoryDetails
Have you told a friend today? http://bookcrossing.com/tellafriend
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