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| Beginnings An Opportunity Book & Buck Shipping Contributors F.A.Q. | I started this website in mid April armed with nothing but good intentions. My goal was to inspire and encourage some of my fellow genre authors to gather up books for the troops. Word of this project has spread beyond that original small circle, and people who don't know me are nonetheless stepping forward to donate books and bucks. Not surprisingly, some of them have had questions. I added this FAQ page on May 17th and I'll continue to respond to questions that come in. Thank you for your support. |
| I'm Lawrence M. Schoen. I'm probably most well known as that "Klingon guy." Back in 1991 I started the Klingon Language Institute, and if you do a Google search on me that's most of what you'll find. I'm also a professional science fiction writer, which is really the part that's more relevant to why I started this project and this site. When I'm not writing, I work as a consultant for a series of mental health and addiction treatment facilities in Philadelphia, PA. I have a doctorate in psychology, but I'm not a clinician, I'm a researcher. | |
| I explained that back on the first page of this site. I wanted to do something for our troops. Sending books seemed like a good idea. I know a lot of people, a lot of authors. I have reasonable organization skills, and I figured sometimes it just takes one person, one voice, to get other people motivated. At least, that was the hope. | |
| If this is a scam, it's a pretty badly designed one. It's not like I'm going to get rich on people bringing me old paperbacks. And the donations for postage aren't exactly rolling in. Moreover, I'm more interested in encouraging people to ship their books themselves. It just makes more. But, if you want to think this is a scam, there's really no point in my trying to convince you otherwise. | |
| I set myself a goal of causing 10,000 books to be shipped. The contributors' page is how I keep track of progress toward that goal. Ideally, anyone who sends books to the troops as a consequence of this project will send me an email and let me know how many they sent so I can add them to the running total. | |
or promote your own fiction? | |
| Thanks, but my ego is plenty big already; it doesn't need any more feeding. As for promoting myself or my work, I very deliberately left off any links to my writing website, as well as any mention of titles of things I've published. Really, this site isn't about me. It's only here to encourage and assist people in sending books to our troops. | |
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First, keep in mind that books going to predominantly Muslim countries must conform to certain restrictions: They must not show any female nudity, or skin from the neck to the knees, either on the cover or anywhere inside the book.
Second, send "gently used" books, not ratty doggeared copies. And don't send any paperbacks that have had their covers removed or "stripped." If you picked up such a book at a used bookstore it was sold illegally; neither the publisher nor the author were paid for that copy. Finally, as for magazines, try to stay fairly current (say, nothing more than six months old). | |
| There's no limit. In fact, I'd encourage you to do it often. Bring this project to your office and challenge your coworkers. Talk to the boss and see if you can set up a bin where folks can drop off their books. It adds up quickly! | |
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That's easy. Send email to me at this address:
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