Hi! We have been doing 2 book fairs a year (fall & spring) for many years. Our PTO makes the profit but via the book fair we get tons of book donations to both the classrooms and the media center.
We hold our book fairs for 4 days (2 browse days, 2 buy days). In the fall we hold ours when Back to school night is going on and it is open that night so that the parents can buy books for their kids as well as for the classrooms. This spring we will be holding ours during the time we hold "muffins with Mom" as it is key to have the parents in the school while the fair is ongoing to boost sales.
On back to school night the classrooms all have book wish lists in them so that the parents can see what books the teachers want for the classrooms and media center and all of the books get purchased and donated. Scholastic even gives you book plates that go in the front of each book to show who donated the book. We also sell Scholastic gift certificates so parents can buy them in any denomonation to give to the teachers and media center. Then the teachers just use them at the fair to buy whatever books they want or need. GOOD LUCK!
What do you get if you book early? We usually book right after our spring fair. The teacher who used to run the book fair before we started still did the booking for us last spring. I don't remember her saying anything about getting anything extra for booking ahead of time. Thanks
The Scholastic Tool Kit makes it SOOOO easy to plan. We do 2 per year and if you book in advance (we usualy do right after we finish, for the following year) you get an extra bonus. Our PTA takes charge of it and the LIbrarian LOVES it she just gets the rewards. We hold it for the classes during the library hours then the PTA holds a family night (we get extra $$$ for that too!).
Also we give every teacher that is a PTA member a free book from the PTA.
We also use Scholastic and have great success. Years ago the fair were only open during the school day during recess times. When the lady who had been running it left I had just become President and got a new chairperson. We tried evening hours and doubled the sales! We now do two fairs a year during Parent/Teacher Conferences. Typically one fair's profits go to the media center and the other fair's profits go to improve classroom libraries(we allot each teacher a dollar amount and they pick out the books they want).
The fairs aren't hard to organize because Scholastic offers great ideas and support through their planning kits, website and reps. It can be a lot of hours during the days you actually have the fair, but nothing most couldn't manage.
As for scheduling your dates-we set our dates for the next school year right after our spring fair because by then we know when PTCs will be. Schedule early if you want specific dates!
When it comes to volunteers, we have a group who love to work bookfairs and can be counted on to be at every one. We then put out the word that help is needed and fill in with others. Most of the new people who step up have so much fun they get on the "regular" list too!
We also use Scholastic and have had very successful bookfairs. We also do 2 things with our bookfair, one is a wishlist from the Teacher. Each teacher fills out an index card for each book that they would like for their classroom library. During family night, any parent can pick up an index card and buy a book for that teacher. The other thing we do is a birthday book for the library. Again, the school libraian would have a wishlist on index cards and we would have bookmark stickers with different themes made out. Child can put his or name in there with the date of their birthday. We find that alot of the parents are very generous when it comes to the book donations. The classroom wins, the library wins and the PTA wins.
