The Secret Sparkle Book Swap
Shall we play a game!?
“To write is human, to receive a letter: Divine!”
~Susan Lendroth
Hi Sparklers,
I was just watching the Canva Glow up presentations and launch; anyone seen them? Meet you in the comments?
Happy Post for your community!
You know when you get to know a brand new friend and you want to learn everything about their life?
You figure out that they love to read, ask them about their favourite books, what they write and why. You keep chatting and learn they are as obsessed with journals and flow state writing as you!
You want to gift them a copy of your favourite book or buy them a copy of the journal you most like to write in?
That’s what THE SECRET SPARKLE BOOK SWAP is…
The Secret Sparkle Book swap…on Substack chat!
Create community, connection and have fun in the process.
Chat can be a funny place especially if you are growing your audience who like and understand the Substack app.
That’s why I thought it would be fun to launch this project for chat specifically…
It relies on a tiny bit of participation - one human to another or one Substack host to community; depends on which participatory model you choose…
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Here’s how it works…
You wrap up any book/ journal of your choice in brown paper or similar… 1
OPTION ONE - You reach out to someone you have got to know here on Substack behind the scenes or
OPTION TWO - you address the whole of your Substack community (like I have) and ask if they want to participate in Sparkle on Substack book swap using chat!2
You write the name on the front of the book of the person you are sending the book to.
You make a video to tell your community about you, your Substack and why you are participating in Substack chat book swap (like this one) 3and show the wrapped up book in the video.
You send the book via mail to the person you reached out to. Or pick someone who volunteers in the chat to receive it? If lots of your community chime in use a random number generator to choose someone? You decide!
The person who receives it through the mail, unwraps the book in a video on chat either sharing photos or videos then starts their own Secret Sparkle Book Swap. 4
No deadlines, just a loose structure and a tonne of fun - let’s see what happens and illuminate our Substack chat spaces!
I wonder how long we can keep it going…
Look out for my launch and an invite to win a copy of this book DIRECTLY in Substack chat later on…
Are you in? Let me know in the comments!?
What book will you choose?
Claire
✨ 🕹️ 📒
It could be your book, one of your favourite books, a friend’s book, your favourite notebook, a new book, an old book, a book you bought at the charity shop. You wrap it up with the intention of giving it away to someone you’ve met on Substack… maybe even receiving one in return we’ll see…
It’s important that it’s in chat because we can share photo responses, words and video there… we can also tag people.
Some ideas - to get to know people here better, to get to know my readers on a deeper level, to practise using video in chat, to showcase who I am in the world…
This is a version of a project I ran for mums in the pandemic called Picture Books and Postcards where I invited people to download a creativity kit and make a ‘care package’ for another mum containing a feel good children’s picture book and postcards, tea and chocolate. If you want to download that or look into it, it’s here.
I love this idea - especially as my last post was about.... books and reading. But... I don't think I've met anyone (besides you!) properly yet. So if it's running all summer maybe that's incentive to get to know people! x
What an awesome idea ❤️