SIBA's Jewell Offering Free Book with Purchase

By Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 3/26/2009 10:54:00 AM

Wanda Jewell, executive director of the Southern Independent Bookstore Alliance, has taken Barack Obama at his word and is doing her part to help increase traffic in her member stores entirely on her own. Dubbed the “Free Book Stimulus Plan,” the program aims to reward those who shop at SIBA stores by sending them a free book from Jewel’s personal library. All that is required is for anyone who purchases a book at a member store to fill out an online form, available at www.freebookstimulusplan.com and mail Jewel the receipt. She’ll in turn mail them a book from her personal library.

“If I hadn’t been working with SIBA for the past 20 years I wouldn’t have so many books to give away,” she said. Jewel will ship books anywhere in the contiguous 48 states. Initially, SIBA is paying for the postage, though Jewell plans to sell a signed first edition of John Irving’s The World According to Garp and other valuable volumes to fund the project, which is projected to last until her library is depleted.