A question to ask is "why do you have a bookfair?" If it is just for the profits then you will not get the profits you can acquire from wrapping paper and all those other "fundraisers". We run two other "fundraisers" per year just for the profits. We do the book fairs for the "getting kids to read" aspect. I have run four bookfairs per year for 5 years, at our middle school and elementary school in the fall and spring. We realize our profits at the fall fair, although we do not bill our book fair as a "fundraiser". Our spring fairs are buy one get one free. I am quite positive that the kids and parents are not concerned so much with the quality of the paper(I have never seen a book with bad paper) but more about buying affordable books.
Harry Potter, Spongebob and Captain Underpants? If that is going to inspire children to read and learn to enjoy reading-even laugh at life's silly antics via the Underpants series and Spongebob bring it on. No kid is going to go into a book fair with boring titles and not even the littlest hint of a diary or non-book item in sight and be happy with that. They simply are not going to be looking for a dictionary and paper quality. Kids are kids. You need to inspire them to read and make it a pleasant experience.
There are some things we do not do to make it more customized for our needs. Each school and district is unique. YOu need to decide what programs Scholastic offers (and there are a lot)to use for your particular situation. We do not utilize the gift certificates. We do not do the wish list for the classes, instead we let our teachers come in and pick our $50 of books for their classroom libraries. We use our profits with the IRC. In fact, each year we are able to put $800 in books into our libraries and still have cash profit left over.
True it is a lot of work. You don't have to tell me, I have been doing it too. We sell a lot - and only in 2 days at that. Scholastic does try to improve and it constantly coming up with improvements to make it simpler. It is a bookfair, there is product to display, yes you do have to set it up, but they get it to you and if you are lucky enough to have a representative come out to help that is great. We did not get one until the last year.
Scholastic does have a Buy 1, Get 1 Free option. It can be run as half price instead. It is a "Clearance" type sale that they offer at only certain times of the year. The books on these fairs are usually the same as the regular fair. Availability of certain titles is restricted, though. Scholastic's book credit/profit options depend on your school's sales--the more you sell, the higher the percentage. Also, when scheduling your fair, try to stay away from their prime Book Fair season when their warehouses don't have as many books available for restock orders because they are all out at other fairs. Your sales rep can tell you when this is. OK, now I sound like a sales rep myself--I've been Book Fair Co-chair for 8 fairs so far and have learned a lot through this experience.
[ 05-17-2005, 07:15 AM: Message edited by: AJ Flanagan ]
I don't really understand how book credits work, but would it be possible to 'buddy up' with a lower-income school and pass the credits on to them? Then a book fair could be both fun for the students and a charitable thing.
If your profit is minimal and you don't absolutely NEED it, consider passing the discount on to your students. That way they get more books for their money. The goodwill generated from this sort of gesture wins over a lot of hearts (and helpers) in the end. I know this isn't necessarily feasible in all situations, but it's something to consider. We did it with great results.
We do put out most of the junk, but the rule is that if a parent sends money the student has to buy a book or books first and can buy the junk with the leftovers. Some years we do a one-day book fair at open house in the spring and then we don't put the junk out. If a parent comes in with a student I don't care what they buy.
My big beef with Scholastic is that we do ALL the work and they make most of the money. We are a big school and we take the biggest book fair they offer. It takes hours to set up (although the sales rep is great about helping) and take down. We have to staff during the week all during school hours and during special events. Meanwhile, it's hard to get replacement merchandise (they are always out of the popular stuff) and I find their customer service is very poor. And then there's the fact that they offer the same merchandise as in the flyers from Scholastic Book Club that the teachers send home. Their answer is that the quality of the books is better at the book fair, but how can you justify asking twice as much for a paperback book that looks exactly the same?
I know we could make 50% profit if we took it in books, but the books from the book fair are too flimsy to put in the library. Paperbacks just don't last and we already have multiple copies of all the series. Our teachers don't need the book credits either. The IRC catalog has outrageously priced merchandise. So we take the lousy 25% in cash.
We would not accept only a 25% profit for any other fundraiser. On cookie dough we make 40% and on gift wrap we make 50%. We did a cookie dough sale this spring and with a few hours work (about a 10th of the time I spend on the book fair) we made the same net profit as we do on our week-long book fair. We only do the book fair because the kids love to come and shop - although almost none of them bring money from home.
I do like the workshops and the website help for the chairpersons, but I just wish they weren't the only game in town. I will look into Usborne for next year.
I also suggest that you don't put all of the junk out. We don't put it all out until our Family Night. That way, parents are there to see what non-book items the kids want and it's the parent's choice to buy them. My Scolastic rep. had no problem with this approach.
