Peggy,
I also sent away for a catalog-- love the pricing and they have a nice selection-- the librarian does the fall book fair with conferences-- but we are going with these guys for the spring sale-- I think we can have a great turnout with this catalog.
Thanks for the info.

Thank you Peggy. I sent for information about the Take Home book fair and it looks great! We are considering this for next year. Thanks for the help and suggestion.! beth

Our book fair with Scholastic just ended Friday. We had two this school year. I love Scholastic. We are considered a little country school with around 650 students. We do pretty well. I have the most amazing Rep. She gets the job done. She is right on top of everything. When I ask for something it is overnighted the next day. If I need more posters, I get it. My reorders arrive the next day. My rep returns my calls immediately as well as responding to my e-mails quickly. This is my 3rd year as Chairperson for our schools book fair and I haven't had a problem yet. (knock on wood). This is the first year that I have had two Scholastic fairs in one year. Usually I have one with Scholastic and the other with Mrs. Nelson's Book Fair. I decided we fare better with Scholastic. However, Mrs. Nelson's Book Fair might be an alternative for someone who isn't happy with Scholastic. Their site is Mrs. Nelson's Toy and Book Shop .

Good luck!

We have used Bedford Falls Book Fairs the past two years. They were good in the number of hardback vs. paperback books and the costs of the books. Plus they didn't have a lot of the "extra" items like posters, etc. that are more of a hassle then anything.

mom2m&a;90514 wrote: As I've posted here before, I hate Scholastic. I'm the book fair chairperson at our school and I find working with Scholastic is miserable. We do all the work and they make all the money. It's a lousy fundraiser but the kids love it so we continue to do it every year. We made as much money off our cookie dough sale this year with no effort as we did off our book fair where I sat there for a whole week and organized donuts with dads and a family night.

Anyway, as far as I can tell there aren't any alternatives to Scholastic. I have heard that there are smaller companies that do a kind of book fair, but nobody that brings in the wide selection of books that you can get from Scholastic. I have never seen any advertisements from other book fair companies. I always thought it would be a great business to start because so many people hate Scholastic.

Just wanted to pass along a great book fair company that i just finished up. It is from Imagine Nation Books Ltd. called:

TakeHomeBookFair.com

I have done dozens of book fairs in my time and THIS one is by far the easiest and they give a 40% rebate which really cant be matched. It doesn’t take any volunteers either. My school received over $3650 in cash and books! ( 30% CASH 10% books)

Scholastic holds “captive audience gadget fairs” It is converse to the “wholeness” of what a book fair should be. And I don’t like the fact that Scholastic dumps their stuff off and leaves us to do all of the work. I pull my hair out each year doing these.

I recommend TakeHomeBookFair.com to everyone if they want excellent durable, up-to-date titles . Their program is by far the newest and most beneficial I have ever seen, not to mention the easiest! It doesnt take a list of volunteers and doesn’t take up your library space.

The account manager I spoke with at Take Home Book Fair was Shane Davis. He was so helpful and was always there if I had a question. He sent 680 Take Home Book Fair catalogs to our school for free and we held the fair for 2 weeks. One other benefit is the teachers get 50% off everything. Each student took one catalog home with them and returned with their orders within our fair timeline. About 9 days after I send my orders in they UPS shipped our orders (pre-sorted in individually labeled boxes for each student)!! I couldn’t believe it. For the first time I didn’t have to sort through hundreds of books. And I didn’t have to move any tables and racks etc…

I ran the Take Home Book Fair by myself. You can get a free catalog on their website. I am staying with this company. No more pulling my hair out. I will post their website on this blog, I hope it sticks.

Thank you,

Peggy Reiling
Librarian
Washington State

debbieinmo;90513 wrote: We have had a huge disagreement with Scholastic. I thought it would be easy to find a new provider, but it is turning out to be more difficult. Anyone use someone different? Anyone you'd recommend? We are a small, rural school that draws a large crowd to the book fairs. Thank you in advance.

____________________________________________________________________________
Just wanted to pass along a great book fair company that i just finished up. It is from Imagine Nation Books Ltd. called:

TakeHomeBookFair.com

I have done dozens of book fairs in my time and THIS one is by far the easiest and they give a 40% rebate which really cant be matched. It doesn’t take any volunteers either. My school received over $3650 in cash and books! ( 30% CASH 10% books)

Scholastic holds “captive audience gadget fairs” It is converse to the “wholeness” of what a book fair should be. And I don’t like the fact that Scholastic dumps their stuff off and leaves us to do all of the work. I pull my hair out each year doing these.

I recommend TakeHomeBookFair.com to everyone if they want excellent durable, up-to-date titles . Their program is by far the newest and most beneficial I have ever seen, not to mention the easiest! It doesnt take a list of volunteers and doesn’t take up your library space.

The account manager I spoke with at Take Home Book Fair was Shane Davis. He was so helpful and was always there if I had a question. He sent 680 Take Home Book Fair catalogs to our school for free and we held the fair for 2 weeks. One other benefit is the teachers get 50% off everything. Each student took one catalog home with them and returned with their orders within our fair timeline. About 9 days after I send my orders in they UPS shipped our orders (pre-sorted in individually labeled boxes for each student)!! I couldn’t believe it. For the first time I didn’t have to sort through hundreds of books. And I didn’t have to move any tables and racks etc…

I ran the Take Home Book Fair by myself. You can get a free catalog on their website. I am staying with this company. No more pulling my hair out. I will post their website on this blog, I hope it sticks.

Thank you,

Peggy Reiling
Librarian
Washington State