Indiebookday? Indie Book Day.

There's no idea that can't be recycled in German*. And the great thing is, the German language allows you to make one long word out of three short words*. So the American initiative Indie Book Day on 16 March is echoed* a week later (presumably so as not to clash with the Leipzig Book Fair) by Indiebookday on 23 March.

The idea seems to be to march into a bookstore, preferably an independent one I guess, and buy a book from an independent press on that day. Just to spread the financial love. I will probably forget but I do have a special policy with independent presses. I normally know no shame about requesting review copies from major publishers. They're always very kind about at least whipping over a pdf, if not in fact showering me with hardcovers. I think of it as being analogous to butchers giving children a slice of sausage - is this something that only happens in Germany? I am like the child who will nag her parents to buy a whole 200 grammes of Bärchenwurst until they give in out of sheer exhaustion. You, dear readers, are my parents who will... OK, the comparison doesn't work all that well but you get where I'm going, right?

With independent presses, however, I am now very careful about asking for free books because I know they're operating on a shoestring and they have to spend an hour pedalling on a re-jigged exercise bike to generate the electricity to answer their emails. They're doing it for love so I like to splash actual cash on their books. You could too.


*Update: So here's the oddest thing: the very charming Daniel Beskos of Mairisch Verlag, who came up with the idea for Germany, says he didn't even know about the American equivalent until he'd created the whole website and everything! Isn't that totally crazy? He says he was inspired by Record Store Day. And just so you don't think he'd do such a tacky thing as recycling an idea, I thought I'd better let you know. There's also a Record Store Day Germany, by the way, which I bet is copied from America.