FUN 2 Give Books

This idea was not new, we just took a different angle and implemented it with local city government.

Using some "refurbished" metallic newspapers stands, we picked 8 locations (6 small business and two local recreational centers) as the home to the free libraries. Why these locations? To help sharing through our website, social media, flyers, etc. that there were some fantastic small businesses where people could go enjoy a class, an ice cream, cake and also get a free book, helping each other to promote the locations and the initiative.

* Read an article about FUN 2 Give Books here. *

At the same time, we took books donations in order to go above and beyond, and started mailing a book (at a time) through USPS absolutely for free, meaning we also covered the postage in order to keep the world of books and reading alive.

After almost two years, we stopped the initiative, as unfortunately we realized that every time less and less people are interested in reading, and even less reading a printed book.

We ended up donating over 350 novels to libraries and different organizations, hoping that someone somewhere will pick up the book, read it, and then share it with someone else, as that was the whole essence of FUN 2 Give Books.

As a key learning, expectations need to be realistic, and need to be managed as the business progresses, as sometimes the emotional side takes over, you see the "noise" you are making in your community or with your potential users/consumers, and start investing more (time or money) on expanding before truly ensuring the foundation, your base, is stable.

** It doesn't matter if it is a free initiative or a business, this is something to always keep in mind **