Having Fun With My Readers: "Where's My Book?"

A few years ago, I saw something that actor/writer Wil Wheaton was doing in conjunction with the release of his new book. The idea was simple: Ask his readers to take a picture with his book in some cool place, and share it with him.

At the time, I remember thinking, "Hey! My readers are totally hip and cool. Surely they'd be game for something like this, right?" And with that, the concept of "Where's My Book?" was born.

I made a few changes to the basic idea. First, I didn't care which of my books the reader wanted to use. It could be my most recent release, but it's always fun to see a new reader finding one of my older titles, or maybe they're just a fan of a particular book and that's the one they want in the picture. I'm down with it. Next, I put a time limit on things. Readers have until the July 24th. That way, I'd have time to conduct a poll and let people select their favorites. Once we do that, I'll have a few lucky winners who'll get a prize. In this case, it's advance reader copies of the book I've got coming out in August.

In years past, I've had a lot of fun with this. Some folks really get into it. I had one fan who lives in Las Vegas, and he drove all the way out to the notorious "Area 51" for pictures with one of my books and the signs on the installations fence line. Anothe reader who volunteers time to one of the Star Trek fan films took pictures of one of my books on the various recreated U.S.S. Enterprise sets they use for filming. Those are actually a little surreal, given the attention to detail imbued in a soundstage that was first constructed over fifty years ago.

This year's contest is currently underway, and I've already got a couple of choice shots from my cousin, who took a book to Devil's Tower in Wyoming (aka, "the mountain from Close Encounters of the Third Kind"). And we're just getting started!

So, if you're looking for an easy, fun way to socialize with you readers and do a little bit of stealth promotion, here you go. :)