Share the passion

18.01.12 | Jamie Byng

Giving someone something that you love is almost always a satisfying experience. And it is an experience that all of us working in the book industry have had on plenty of occasions when it comes to literature. For sharing your passion for a book with another person who has yet to go on that reading journey is one of the joys that drives our business and motivates us as people. The personal recommendation is one of the essential wires by which we are connected to one another.

If at times this can make you feel like an evangelist, the consolation comes from knowing that the experience will not always be good for the soul that seeks certainty. Many books seek to remind us how vulnerable and confused and foolish and easily delighted/disappointed we all so often are. Or, as Michael Morpurgo puts it more succinctly in his wonderful story I Believe in Unicorns, "books make you want to ask questions".

My question is this: can we as an industry pull together to do something unprecedented on the 23rd January to push World Book Night 2012 over the recruitment finishing line? Surely we can. It's a question of making it happen. And hopefully this is where all of you come in.

On the 23rd January we are going to try to harness the collective power of the book industry in our final recruitment push for 2012. Already over 13,000 people have applied, but we need at least 20,000 givers to register—800 for each of the 25 titles—by the 31st January.

By focussing on one day, we are hoping to get every single author, agent, bookseller, librarian, literature organisation and publisher using whatever means they have at their disposal to promote the idea of applying to be a World Book Night giver. If we are able to galvanise everyone to do this in the same 24-hour period, this will in itself generate additional media coverage, and I am certain we can get WBN trending on Twitter and flooding the Facebook airwaves. And not only are we trying to make this happen in the UK and Ireland but also in America, where the inaugural WBN America is launching on the 23rd April. The combined impact could be awesome.

But before the 23rd January, I would also urge any of you who care about books and promoting reading (i.e. all of you) to go to www.worldbooknight.org and apply to be a giver yourself. Last year I gave away Mohsin Hamid's magnificent novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. This year I'll be giving away copies of one of my favourite British novels of the past decade, David Peace's The Damned United, in Leeds. I cannot wait, and just hope that thousands of others in the industry are givers too. It is certainly a brilliant selection of 25 titles to choose from.

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