Americas ann Germans will join British subjects and Irishmen in celebrating the second annual World Book Night on April 23, 2012. Organizers of World Book Night (WBN) celebrations in the U.S. hope 50,000 volunteer book givers will hand out twenty books each for a total distribution of 1,000,000 free special WBN-edition paperbacks.
Last year, WBN launched in the U.K. and Eire (the Republic of Ireland) and readers across the British Isles gave 1,000,000 books to people who infrequently or almost never read in order to spread the love of reading. In 1995, UNESCO proclaimed April 23rd the International Day of the Book (also known as World Book and Copyright Day).
World Book Night U.S. is a non-profit organization and applying for tax-exempt status as a 501(c)3 charitable organization. The office address: 71 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10003. This is Executive Director Carl Lennertz's Blog.
Thirty titles are specially chosen and printed in their thousands in WBN editions. Prospective WBN Givers apply to give away a particular book (given a first, second and third choice) and if the organization selects them, they must commit to give away the book to people who hardly read “to share and spread their love of reading.” Each WBN Giver receives twenty-four copies which they pick up from their local bookshops and libraries in the week before April 23rd.
The people who volunteered to be potential WBN Givers will be chosen shortlyby World Book Night U.S. The volunteers are U.S. residents age sixteen or over able to pick up twenty copies of a WBN edition from a bookshop or library.
They submit plans for the distribution of books.To read the terms and conditions of being a World Book Night giver click here.
World Book Night U.S. states, “WBN Givers are responsible for any expenses incurred in picking up their carton and distributing the books. We expect that such expenses will be negligible."
World Book Night U.S. states on its Web site that it “is supported by American book publishers, the American Booksellers Association, Barnes & Noble, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, and Ingram Book Distributors. Through their generosity, we are able to make the books available free of charge.”
The World Book Night U.S. Sponsors are Algonquin Books, American Booksellers Assoc, American Library Association, AAP, Barnes & Noble, Book Page, Book Reporter, Candlewick, Goodreads, Grove Atlantic, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Hyperion, Ingram Content Group, MacMillan, Penguin Group, Perseus/PGW, Random House, Regional Bookseller Assoc, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, Shelf Awareness, and W.W. Norton.
It has the support of Regional Booksellers Associations. Ypsilanti, Michigan-basedGreat Lakes Independent Booksellers Association (GLIBA) represents bookstores in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Golden Valley, Minnesota-based Midwest Independent Booksellers Association (MIBA) is a non-profit trade association.
MIBA has over 225 members, including “locally owned and operated independent bookstores; book publishers, distributors, reps, and vendors who do business with our bookstores; and other individuals and businesses allied to the book industry, such as media, librarians, and teachers.” It covers North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois.
Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association (MPIBA) describes itself as “a non-profit professional association of 160 locally-owned, independent bookstores.” It covers Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
San Francisco-based Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA)describes itself as a “trade organization dedicated to supporting, nurturing and promoting independent retail bookselling in California.”
It has more than 500 members, of which almost 300 booksellers. The associate members are publishers, wholesalers, sales reps, librarians, and vendors. Pasadena-based Southern California Independent Booksellers Association (SCIBA) describes itself as “a non-profit trade association of independent booksellers, book wholesalers, publishers and other industry professionals located primarily in Southern California and Southern Nevada.”
Westbury, New York-based New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) covers New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Arlington, Massachusetts-based New England Independent Booksellers Association (NEIBA). It covers Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New York. Eugene, Oregon-based Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) describes itself as “a nonprofit trade association representing the interests of literacy, free speech and independent bookselling in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. Our members include: owners and managers of independent and chain bookstores; publishers; publishers' sales representatives; distributors; authors; publicists; librarians; book reviewers; producers of sideline items; and other friends of the trade are represented as associate (non-voting) members.” Columbia, South Carolina-based Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) describes itself as “a trade association which represents over 300 bookstores and thousands of booksellers in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and Mississippi.”
Charlotte Williams reported for www.Thebookseller.com, the Web site of The Bookseller, a British magazine that covers the publishing industry, on January 17, 2012 that “World Book Night is continuing its international spread, with Germany now set to join the UK and US in staging a one million book giveaway on 23rd April 2012”(“Germany joins World Book Night”). “The German World Book Night will be carried out in association with the Friends of Reading campaign, which is launching in Germany as part of the German World Book Day. The event will be a joint initiative between Germany's Reading Foundation (Stiftung Lesen), The Association of German Publishers and Booksellers (Boersenverein des Deutschen Buhhandels), and individual German publishers, in partnership with World Book Night.”
Organizers in Germany will stage a public reading with authors, actors, artists, journalists, athletes, and musicians as part of the Festival of Friends of Reading in Hamburg. The German campaign will involve 33,333 WBN Givers who will select one of a list of twenty-five titles and will then be responsible for giving away thirty copies of that title to members of the public.
WBN founder Jamie Byng said, "It was always our dream to see World Book Night happen all over the world and having it as part of Weltag des Buches (World Book Day) and in such an important country is tremendously exciting. We hope it is an enormous success and that it achieves its aim of getting more people to read and share their passion for great books. And the prospect of three million books being given away in this dynamic and pro-active way is wonderful."
Among the twenty-five titles to be given away are German translations of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, About a Boy by Nick Hornby, The Ghost by Robert Harris, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, and Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Professor Gottfried Honnefelder, head of The Association of German Publishers and Booksellers, said, "Twenty publishing companies are joining together to spread a passion for reading. World Book Day has for many years been a celebration of reading. With the Friends of Reading campaign, we're expanding the scope of our engagement in order to make clear that reading is a fundamental and enriching part of life."
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