Giving it Away

One of the beneftis of my compensation scheme is that I receive 10 copies of each of the books that I author. It's nice in that get a package to look forward to -- who doesn't like receiving packages? -- but I also get to see my book's finished form without leaving my house. Even better is that I get plenty of copies to share with friends and family and to even just give away to total strangers I meet online.

But six years and forty-something books later, I find myself with several hundred pounds of strategy guides in my closet and a lack of ideas concerning what to do with them. On my office walls is a framed cover of each of my books. On my bookshelf is a lone copy of each of my books. And in my closet is two boxes, each containing one copy of each of my books. There are also about 12 other boxes filled with hundreds of strategy guides. And some of them are quite heavy.

Last fall, I thought it'd be a good idea to give one copy of each book to the Seattle Public Library. They recently opened a new 10-story architectural wonder of a building (click here to see it) and I thought it'd be cool to donate some of my books. They preferred I didn't. I was told that there are far too many of them being published for them to house them in their collection. He then cited my authoring of 40 or so as a perfect example. Nevermind the fact that taking a contribution from a local author doesn't obligate them to then acquire every guidebook published from here to eternity, but why would they turn down free books? They're obviously too good for little old me.

In stark contrast to the SPL was how the town of North Bend's library reacted. They didn't really care if I wrote the books or not, they were happy to take any donations I wanted to make. Cut and dry. They didn't care if they were videogame strategy guides (although they did have my Prince of Persia and Enter the Matrix books already on the shelves) or not and they didn't seem to feel some obligation to now collect every one. There were no forms to fill out. No explanations needed. I walked in, handed over two boxes of books, and was promptly thanked and sent on my way. Which was just the way I wanted it.

And now I can return to the task of cleaning out my office closet, which has suddenly been made easier with the addition of 3 empty cubic feet of space.