How to Run a Book Swap
or a book donation drive
As many of you know, in light of the recent fires in Los Angeles, I decided to hold a book drive last weekend and I collected over 900 books as well as over $550 in funds to purchase new books for people who filled out my book wish list questionnaire.
But before book drives, I held book swaps, another fun way to gather bookish people together. So, what follows covers both book drive donation gatherings and book swap gatherings.
How to Run a Book Swap or Book Donation Gathering
Book swaps and book donations are fun because they allow people to clean out their bookshelves, discover new books and help the greater good by donating leftover books. But they do take some planning and organization.
1. Set a Date and Venue
Since I kept this one small, I decided to hold it at my house. If your event is larger, consider a community center or school. I cleaned off all viable surfaces in my living room and dining room and added three collapsable tables to add extra surface area for books.
2. Invite Guests & Encourage Book Donations
I sent out invitations about a week in advance. I let people know that, unlike previous times, this was a book donation drive and not a book swap, so they wouldn’t be going home with any books. I told people I’d be happy to keep their bags and boxes to load books in when everything was finished, but if they wanted their tote bags back, they could write their name on a piece of masking tape and stick it to the bag.
3. Have a System:
Parking is scant on my street, so I enlisted the help of my college kid to be a book runner. (My high school kid was set to help, but came down with a terrible infection and hid in his room.) People could pull up, drop their books off and then look for street parking. This eased the burden of having to walk a block with bags of books.
When the books arrived, we set to work separating them by genre. The living room was for nonfiction and the dining room was for fiction. I made sub-genre signs in each room. We had to make some of these on the fly, such as when a travel book arrived, it was time to make a new sign.
Our fiction signs included: literary fiction / contemporary fiction / suspense-thriller / fantasy / historical fiction / graphic novel / young adult/ middle grade / picture book
Our nonfiction signs included: history / cooking and food / lifestyle / business / foreign language / writing instruction / entertainment / art / memoir / travel
And we had a WTF section for books that didn’t fit into any of the aforementioned categories. I think people were perturbed that some classic plays were placed in the WTF section, but it was only because we didn’t have a section for plays! Next year…
We used the “Algerian” font for the signs. I like how classic they looked!
Decorations: I’m not a huge decorations person, but this event called for flowers.
Music: Turn on tunes you enjoy!
Seating Areas: Have comfortable seating for people to chat about books they love.
Food and Drink: If your event is between meals (which ours was) make sure you have ample food and libations. Carting books around is hard physical work! My husband put together this beautiful charcuterie board and we had both wine and non-alcoholic beverages. If I’d had more time, I would have come up with a clever literary-themed cocktail.
Book Swap: If you’re going the book swap route, settle on the rules of the book swap before the event begins: i.e. are you allowed to take as many new books as you’ve donated? When I last held a book swap I let everyone spend some time walking around and looking at all of the books before surprising everyone by hitting my son’s snare drum, signaling it was time to race and grab a book you wanted. This kept people on their toes and made it fun! I think I drummed three different times, all around ten minutes apart before announcing it was a free for all and people could take whatever they wanted.
Have a Plan for Leftover Books:
Obviously with a book donation, all books are being donated. Let guests know which organization(s) you are donating to before they arrive. With a book swap, I was also left with many extra books. Do the research ahead of time to see who will take books. Some organizations will schedule a time to come get the books from your home, which is very convenient.
For my book donation, I collected people’s book wish lists and let them include authors or genres they enjoy. Then I made gift bags of books tailored to their interests. It’s been so satisfying to have a title that is on someone’s wishlist. I also used voice dictation to speak each and every book title and author…over 900 into my phone to get them all down. I then asked AI to catalogue them by genre and now I have an imperfect master list here.
If you or someone you know lives in Los Angeles and has been displaced by the fires, please consult this list and share with others and reach out to me with any books you’d like. I will try and keep this list as updated as possible.