Pulping Fiction?

Getting rid of unwanted books can be problematic whether you are a publishing company seeking to offload unwanted stock, or an individual suffering from the immense bookguilt that follows the purchase (and - heave forbid - secret enjoyment) of a terribly trashy novel that doesn't do your street cred any good.

The Bookseller tells of one company's ingenious solution:

Web-to-print publisher the Friday Project has hit on a novel way of getting rid of old editions of its title London by London . It considered burning the outdated copies, then looked into pulping them--but the first option was too reminiscent of the Nazis, and the second just a waste. So its preferred solution is to launch a Dan Brown Commuter Book Amnesty, offering those with 'Dan Brown trash-lit guilt' the opportunity to swap 'any old dog-eared Dan Brown book for a shiny LbL one. Free.' The publisher explains: 'That way, we get rid of our stash of first edition LbL books in an environmentally sound way and you get a book that you can actually be proud to carry on the Tube. And then we'll send all the Dan Browns off to be recycled into new--and probably better--books. Everyone's a winner! Except possibly Brown but, frankly, he's too rich to care.