“Giving away your books in the street isn’t a marketing approach that’s embraced by many authors,” but after publishing two novels to critical acclaim and few sales, Robert Chalmers has taken to offering people on the street copies of his books—for free. Chalmers explains to reporter Rhodri Marsden in this profile in The Independent, he doesn’t blame his publisher, Atlantic, for the situation. “The likes of HarperCollins and Macmillan can blanket-bomb towns with those huge bookshop displays. I’ve always wondered whether ‘ordinary people’ with no influence or literary connections would actually like my books — I mean, it’s not like they’re Dostoyevsky or something. So, we had this joke in the pub a while ago… and now, well, here we are.” Marsden reports that, “Inspired by finding novels littered on Manhattan subways by authors trying to create a word-of-mouth buzz, Chalmers devised a scheme to help promote his new book, East of Nowhere. ‘It’s putting the litter back in literature. I had this idea of bombarding a small town with books, so they end up everywhere and can’t be avoided.'” But as Chalmers is finding out in the small town of Otley, some people are more receptive to free books than others: “‘No thank you,’ snaps a woman, eyeing the cover suspiciously as if it’s some extreme religious propaganda. A grey-haired man is approached at the checkout. ‘Would you like a book?’ ‘What, free? Aye.’ He slips it into his bag with the oven chips. Another satisfied customer.”