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Gave away 40 paperbacks on my street in Portland last Saturday and half got taken in an hour
Last Saturday I put a folding table at the end of my driveway on SE Clinton in Portland with about 40 paperbacks on it. Sign said FREE BOOKS. I sat on the porch with coffee and watched. In one hour, 22 books were gone. A guy on a bike took four spy novels and left a note saying thanks. A mom with a stroller took the whole stack of kids books. Here is my hot take. The little free library on the corner has been sitting half empty for weeks, but a table with a person nearby gets cleared out. I think people want the handoff, not just the shelf. So now I am thinking about doing this once a month instead of donating to the thrift store where they just get pulped. Has anyone tried a swap table on their block and did people actually bring books back to trade, or did they just take?
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susan_wright345d ago
I did almost the same thing two summers ago in Milwaukie, just off Concord, and I counted 31 books gone in about 90 minutes. My neighbor Deb took six romance novels and came back the next week with a grocery bag of her own to add, so some folks do get it. The one thing I learned is to write the date on the sign, like FREE BOOKS SAT ONLY, because otherwise people start dropping their old junk there at 10pm like it is a dump. I also stopped putting out anything nice because a couple of good hardcovers walked off the first time and that bugged me more than it should have. Try the swap table once and see what happens, but keep your hopes low on the trading part and you will be fine.
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