Used Book Sale as a Fundraiser

[Susan Miles]

To complement our limited library budget we are going to have a used book and media sale at our Pre K-5) school with the bulk of donations coming from school families.We are accepting children and adult items. Has anyone done one of these before? If so, do you have any advice, wisdome, suggestions for this newbie? Thanks!

[Johanna Riddle]

I've had a couple of these. I arrange them on tables by reading level. I also have a small "summer swap" table for students who may not have a lot of pocket change. It allows them to bring in an old book and trade it for one at the sale. It allows everyone to participate, and keeps them reading! Don't forget to have a donations jar at the checkout counter. Lots of customers will drop their change in if they know that their donations are going towards resources for the children. Don't forget to line up your volunteer parents for this one. If you have a space to set it up outside of the media center, you can keep media services running while volunteers handle the shopkeeping. Have fun!

[Rachel Brockman]

Susan -
What a great idea! Our school has done a used book swap before, but never a used book sale. Please post how you set it up, organize, and run it - let us know if you have any success! When are you planning on running it?

[Susan Miles]

Here is what I am thinking of so far:

1) send out a message to families (email, in communicators) telling about the sale and making a plea for gently used donations by 'x' date (the school is so low on paper that I dare not make 300 copies of anything! -- however I do have a free copy card (for $20) from Office Depot that I could use to make copies)

2) as books/media come in, sort into kids/adults and price. I suggest having three prices: $1, $3 and $5 to make things easier

3) during the week of April 20, have a sale similar to bake sales--everyday at lunch time with just kids stuff (Library Club kids and volunteers can run it)

4) have a booth at the Family Fun Night on Friday (April 24), with both kids and adult stuff with the same price structure.

5) at all sales have a 'swap table' which is a 'leave a book/take a book" option for kids who don't have much cash

6) keep things as simple as possible

7) library gets first dibs at all donated materials for itself

Any guidance or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Susan H]

I just did a used book sale to benefit my union's scholarship fund and it went really well. We did it during our district carnival, so people were already drawn in, and we asked for donations ahead of time. We got a LOT! We set them out and started selling them mostly for $0.50 each, and some sold but when we switched it to 10 for $2.00 we sold MANY more. We made about $180, but I was shocked the high school library made $163 and all they did was sell smencils (smelly pencils). I have a lot of books left to sell next year AND I am taking the romance novels to half price books just to get rid of them. Let me know if you would like to see fliers, I have two good ones!