B&N book fair

[Elaine]

Hi All, looking for tips and suggestions for having a successful fundraiser at Barnes & Noble Bookstore. We are a secondary high school and we have never done anything like this before.

Thanks!

[Janethelibrarian]

I am at a middle school and have worked with Barnes & Noble on book fairs several times. We have actually gotten them to bring the books to us to have a four-day fair at our school, and, especially since one day of the fair is Open House Night, we have done really well with that. We've been able to get a good, "customized" selection of books. It is a LOT more work than having it at their store, since we (parent volunteers and me) have to set it all, and I need to supply the customer relations rep with lists of the books we would like in order to be sure we are getting what we want. However, B&N has supplied the cashier, so we don't have to do that. They have also allowed people to shop at their store that entire week for the full store selection, so we've been able to get the best of both worlds, I think. Some things that can help your turnout at the store are having students do a story hour for younger kids, have your chorus or band play, or any sort of student activity, since that will get more people to come. We have also tried getting some of the food merchants in the shopping center to participate by donating some of their profits one night of the fair, but that produced very little additional revenue. I just got an idea from another librarian that I want to try this holiday season if I can work it out with B&N: We'll set up a date for an in-store fair, and I'll be there doing book talks on good books parents can buy as gifts. I'll go over the books I plan to book talk in advance with the customer relations rep to be sure the store has plenty of copies of those books in stock.

[Karen Hornberger]

We did one last year and it was really successful. We held it in mid-December (right when holiday shopping was happening). The event that really drew a crowd was a "how well do you know your..." contest. We had a category for best friend, girlfriend/boyfriend, sibling, and twin. We recruited some teachers to participate and that also helped to draw a crowd in. If you'd like, you can email me and I can send you my notes on the event. I'm currently at home, but will be more than glad to on Monday.

[Jennifer Winstead]

Our high school campus uses B & N. I think anything you can to get groups to attend will attract a crowd- the choir to sing, band to play, football players or cheerleaders hand out flyers, drama group preform a skit and ask all of their parents and grandparents to come watch. Your school can also get credit from out of B & N purchases so be sure to post the voucher to your website and advertise, advertise, advertise through email, newsletters, student announcements, etc.