Each year many charities aim to improve less fortunate people’s lives through the gift of literacy. For the millions of people worldwide who receive donated books, they are an opportunity to feel connected with society, to learn and feel cared for. For that reason the donations deserve to be current and in great condition.

We thought we could make a difference if we could find a way to get the fortunate readers who buy new books to read them, and then put them in the hands of those less fortunate.

So, we created a new type of dust jacket which could be fitted to any book.

We call it Mailbooks For Good.

When people have finished reading their new books, they are instructed to flip the cover inside out, turning the book into a pre-paid, pre-addressed parcel. The parcels are then ready to send directly to the charity for distribution.

In this idea, the media was the printed dust jackets of books. In the past dust jackets have mostly been used for promotional and aesthetic purposes.

We turned them into a part of the donation process. When readers have finished reading their books, they are instructed to flip the cover inside out, turning the book into a pre-paid, pre-addressed parcel. The parcels are then ready to send directly to the charity for distribution.

The media itself was familiar to our target audience, book buyers, but had never been used to communicate with them like this before.

By partnering with Random House, we re-imagined a very old media and created a compelling reason for existing buyers to donate more books, and a product which interested new buyers too.

Mailbooks For Good is already running in Sydney with a launch collection of five different adults and children’s titles by prominent Australian authors including Peter Fitzsimons, and the awarded Nick Earls and Stephen Dando-Collins.

The dust jacket design is pending global patent. In partnership with Random House an international roll-out is planned for the near future.