We use Scholastic for our book fairs. Like your group our PTO runs the fair and handles the cash. We choose to put all our profits toward our media center and classroom libraries. We sell enough books to make 30% profit, but we double that if we take it in books and vouchers so we usually do that.
What company do you use for your bookfair? Our school has a bookfair each year and PTO helps to run it but the profits don't come to us. I was thinking of our PTO having a bookfair during a different time of the year and the breakfast thing with special guests is a great idea.
Congratulations! It always feels great to have an event turn out to be way more than you expected. Our book fair profits went way up when we started being open in the evenings. Giving the parents and other adults a chance to come with the children is a great way to boost sales-you're not going to send $50 with your child to school, but you'll spend it when you can come with them and help choose the books! We now coordinate both our book fairs to coincide with our Parent/Teacher conferences. Parents come down to the fair and buy books as rewards for the kids. We really like to see that!
I just had to share the good news about our annual Spring Book Fair! For the first time, we invited "Special Friends" to our Book Fair, from 9-11 a.m. Special Friends could be grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents, or friends. Students were allowed to meet their special friend at the Book Fair, browse & purchase the books and then go to the Book Cafe, where the PTO provided juice, coffee, muffins, doughnuts and cookies. The cafe was decorated with pretty table cloths, fresh flowers, candles, and music was playing. We expected only 50, over 200 showed up! WOW!!!
