Carolyn McCrae

Award-Winning Independent Author

What to do with all those books?

Over the course of the past 16 years, I have written and published seven titles which have appeared in hardback and/or paperback and two that have appeared as Kindle e-books only…
In those early days there was no such thing as e-books and people bought and read the real thing but, as a new author, I had no idea how many copies would be sold and therefore how many should be printed (this was also before Print on Demand became a thing). So inevitably, full of confidence that the titles I had worked so hard to complete would be a success, I had far too many printed. Although that brought the cost per copy down, but it also meant that I had a stack of books that, equally inevitably, remained unsold.
Some of these were held by the publisher and, as they lost interest in me and my books, many were pulped by them but that still left all the copies I had had delivered to me to sell privately. This worked, to an extent, but supply far outstripped demand.
Some I have sold, certainly, but nothing like as many as I always hoped so some have been given to charity shops. Some get deposited on the ‘50p per book in the charity box’ in the local Co-op. But most have been carted around the country as we have moved house; the oldest have been from Kent to Worcestershire to South Shropshire to North Shropshire to the Isle of Wight to Devon and back to Kent. So now is the time to finally get rid of them.
But how?
I refuse to burn them, anyway, have you ever tried to set light to a book? Putting them all in a skip would seem very wasteful – not to mention hurtful. I read that you cannot recycle books in normal paper/card recycling and there doesn’t seem to be a ‘book’ section in our local recycling centre. Anyway, that also would seem very wasteful when they are perfectly undamaged not to mention good reads.
So, finally, we’ve found a home for them.
Last week we delivered my remaining boxes to Books2Africa.com in Canterbury.
I admit to shedding a tear or two since then at lost dreams but when I stopped feeling sorry for myself my overwhelming emotion has been relief. And also hope that they will be of use in this wonderful organisation as is promotes ReadCycling.

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What to do with all those books? Don't destroy them, send them to Africa.
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