What, I wondered, did I really want from publishing my first novel, Circus Home— A Novel of Life, Love and New Jersey? To have a NYTimes best seller? Or to get my stories told, read and enjoyed by lots of people?
A reader, Tim, in San Diego helped me answer that question. Tim wrote the first review of my book on Amazon and— since he was first to post— I offered to donate two copies of Circus Home to the library of his choice. What I had in mind was Circus Home being vetted and approved by a stern, municipal public librarian in a huge brick and mortar building with miles of shelves and thousands of books. Further, I imagined Circus Home sitting cold and alone in the teeming universe blinking like a satellite in the crowded, dark, starry sky of books waiting for someone to find it, check it out with their library card, and read it.
Tim had a very different idea. He wasn’t wrestling with the author’s question of a best seller. To Tim, it was simple: get Circus Home into readers’ hands fast so they can start enjoying it. So, he placed the book in two of San Diego’s street-corner libraries.
These free libraries allow readers to take books and leave books, right in their neighborhood, investing no more than a brief walk to the corner. There are over 150,000 such libraries in more than 100 countries, maintained by littlefreelibrary.org. And Littlefreelibrary is only one group of many that stewards such book lending globally. Recently, BIll Gates dropped 100 copies of his favorite books into free street-corner libraries around the world.
Tim helped me to see that my goal should be getting as many people as possible to love Circus Home. The sales numbers would follow.
Thanks to Tim, Circus Home is being read and enjoyed in street-corner libraries in San Diego!
