Interesting Approach to Marketing

At The Guardian, Ben Myers has a posting today about Billy Childish’s The Idiocy of Idears, 300 copies of which were hidden in London bookstores:

Entitled The Idiocy Of Idears, a book of jottings by “schoolboy Gustav Claudius”, it had no ISBN number and no barcode. Nor was there any indication of who the real author was. So it rather stuck out amongst the racks of books packaged like blockbuster DVDs or breakfast cereals.

More important, though, was the lack of a price, for The Idiocy Of Idears was being given away entirely free of charge – and without store’s permission. In other words, someone – possibly its author – has sneaked a stash of books into the store and strategically placed copies onto the shelves.

This isn’t the first time someone’s done such a thing, but I agree with Myers—I think it’s funny . . . in part because I’m sure some cop-like Waterstone’s managers were perturbed by this odd, undocumented book hanging out in their travel section.

I don’t know about you, but I find this minor act of mischief-making funny. It’s a prank or a deception with no victim: book browsers get a mysterious book for free, the shops lose no stock and the author gets his or her work read and distributed thanks to an existing customer base. It’s much like deciding to smuggle a baguette into Prêt a Manger in silent protest at their over-priced, over-salted crayfish and rocket sandwiches. It is, in essence, reverse stealing.