Friday, 28 June 2013

The Only Entrance Requirement is Interest

My sister-in-law, Ellen, sent me a text saying that Change with Confidence had been purchased by the Toronto Public Library system. Seven hard copies and one e-copy were catalogued in their on-line database, and the e-copy had already been reserved!

This is big news to me. A library bought my book. More people will now be reading it. I wrote a library book. Like other milestones, I thought, "This is a real book."

I am nostalgic about libraries. I remember as a boy signing-out books for school projects. As an adult, I searching through research manuals for publishers to pitch. I had a purpose and the library enabled me to accomplish it.

Toronto Reference Library
Home of Change with Confidence
Who will be using my book and how it will be used? Will people take notes, reference quotes, write in the margins or maybe even rip out pages instead of copying them (the horror)? Will someone owe fines for keeping my book past its due date? 

Mostly, I think about my book reaching a new audience. People with their own purposes using my book for free. Lady Bird Johnson said, "Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest."

Like most great opportunities, I am thinking about how to scale it. If one library system is interested in Change with Confidence, how do I engage others who may feel similarly. I have to believe there is lots of interest.

Phil

1 comment:

  1. Not just any library selected your book-- toronto public libraries has the highest circulation stats of any library system in the world! I suspect your globe and mail book review helped too. Congratulations!
    EB

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