If you love your book, set it free. Frustrated by the old advance copy review system, author Stephen Elliott broke one of the old rules of book publicity–giving advance copies of his book to anyone who asked.
Elliott mailed a copy of his new book, “The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder,” to one interested reader, and let that reader mail the advance copy to the next reader. As he explains in this exclusive video interview, this informal “lending library” had some unexpected community-building results.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “It used to be only the media elite would get advance copies of books. But now, I think anybody that wants to read the book, you should give them an advance copy. It used to be you would send out five galley copies to media professionals and maybe one of them would read it. With my lending library, I would send out one copy and five people would read it. So it’s a lot more efficient.”