First off… AWESOME.. so glad you did. I am so glad you found it and at least had enough interest to come and check out the site. I started leaving books around the Baltimore MD area in 2009 in a hope to reach out to other like minded locals. I only leave books that I have read and connected with. By leaving these books around I hope to share things I like with others and if the person who found my books liked it, perhaps we have something in common.

So I am going to keep this brief in a question and answer format.

I finished the book… now what?

If you liked the book you can add your twitter and facebook information (or whatever info you want… perhaps a blog URL or email address) to the inside cover with a date. Then leave the book in a public place. Hopefully the next person who finds the book and likes it will friend you and me up as we have things we like in common.

I love the book. Can I keep it?

Well you could… I mean you have it and I don’t know who you are, but the point of the experiment is really to find a lot of people that like the book. I encourage you to add your twitter and facebook information on the inside cover and leave the book somewhere for the next person to find. All the books are available on Amazon so if you really like it, I would suggest picking it up and supporting the author.

I hated the book. What a waste of time.

Sorry you feel that way. If you don’t mind just leaving the book somewhere, perhaps someone else might like it.

Where should I leave the book?

Up to you. I typically leave them at Starbucks, restaurants with internet, etc.  Someplace where a person might go and sit down and have a chance to browse it. I wouldn’t suggest a bookstore or library as the person taking the book might get accused of stealing and the whole point is for someone to be able to read it for free.

Sounds like a great idea… Can I leave books too?

Of course!

What books have you left places?

I have left copies of the:

• The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual
• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
• The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
• In the Beginning…was the Command Line
• The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
• The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
• The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
• Free Culture

Do you want your books back? Don’t you miss them?

Actually I own a Amazon Kindle and have these books in electronic format now so the hardcopies are books I got before that and or books that I have picked up used/cheap for this experiment. Short answer, no, I don’t want/expect them back.

What is this Twitter and Facebook of which you speak?

I won’t get into what they are, you can find out on their pages, but the info in the inside cover is a listing of twitter user names and Facebook ID numbers of people who read and liked the book. So if you like it, you may want to add them as friend as you may have something in common.

TWITTER : http://www.twitter.com/USERNAME  – The user name is what should be in the inside cover. In my case this is lwallenstein so the URL would be http://www.twitter.com/lwallenstein

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=IDNUMBER – The IDNUMBER is what should be in the inside cover. In my case this is 500092293 so the url would be http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=500092293

Thanks for taking part in my social experiment. Feel free to friend me up on Goodreads,  Twitter or Facebook… or just leave a comment letting me know you found my book and which one… just cause I am interested.