Visit the right New York City bookstore on your lunch hour today and you could get a $1 gift from Tarcher/Penguin; employees of the Penguin Group imprint will be standing in front of the Grand Central Posman Books, McNally Jackson Booksellers, the Park Avenue Borders, East West Living, and St. Marks Bookshop handing out dollar bills to the first 200 people they meet at each location willing to take them. The one-time event was inspired by The Power of Kindness, a book by psychotherapist Peiro Ferrucci that has become a sleeper success for Tarcher over the last few years.
“When we saw how hard everyone was being hit by the economy this year, and particularly, our industry, we thought we would do something a little out of the box to help both booksellers and consumers,” Kevin Howell, a marketing manager at Tarcher, explained in a recent press release. “We thought about giving out cold bottles of water on a hot day or slipping quarters into parking meters on the verge of expiring, an idea mentioned in The Power of Kindness. In the end, though, the simplest solution was best. Why not give people cash, something that they really want right now, that will hopefully brighten their day, and that will stimulate the economy in some small way?”
(dollar bills by Photos8.com)