Are School Book Fairs Unfair?

To be honest, I wouldn’t have thought about it had I not been prompted. But, after reading a couple of articles, I really started to think about whether school book fairs are inherently unfair.

Which, when you think about it, is almost funny. Can a fair be unfair?

The Reason Book Fairs are Unfair to Children

You might ask yourself how in the world can those old-fashioned book fairs be unfair. I mean, they’ve been around forever. Scholastic Book Fairs, on their website, say they run more than 125,000 book fairs alone. So you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of events that are virtually automatic.

So what’s wrong with holding a book fair.

What I’ve learned is that many people simply can’t send money to school with their kids to buy books. That means those kids have to watch the kids of financially stable families getting to buy not only books, but supplies and other trinkets while they wait in class.

Again, I never thought about those kids. I’m sure some schools make sure everyone can get something. But most don’t do that. After all, the book fair is supposed to raise money. Giving books away would certainly reduce the financial benefit to the school.

What broke my heart the most was reading stories from adults who now say the book fair was the first time they realized how poor they were. In some cases people talk about being one of only a handful of students in their class with no money to spend at the fair.

Remember these are adults talking. So that experience has stayed with them for a long time.

Why Book Fairs are Unfair to Schools

For those of you who have never run a school book fair let me explain how they work.

Companies like Scholastic, Follett and others get schools to set up mini-stores that are usually in school libraries. The school has to gather enough volunteers to set up the store, manage the store daily for a couple weeks and finally break down the store. They have to handle all the transactions and inventory management.

The book fair company does none of that. They simply ship the books, merchandise and displays to the school for the volunteers to handle.

So what does the school get for selling what many call over-priced books to kids? Depending on the total sales at the book fair the school will earn the equivalent of 20–25% profit on their sales. Of course the book fair companies will double that amount if the school spends that money with the company purchasing inventory at 60–70% profit margins.

Based on public financials, the average Scholastic Book Fair in America sells slightly more than $4,000. There are, of coure, some that do much better. But that means there are many that do much worse.

Based on a $4,000 average fair an average school earns $800 to $1,000. The book fair company earns much more. It doesn’t seem fair.

Adding Insult to Injury

The thing that makes fairs completely unfair, however, is the fact the the book fair companies have started excluding low income schools that have no chance of selling $2,500 of books.

We’ve been told that schools that can’t assure the company of that level of sales is unable to even hold a book fair.

That means the school libraries that most need the money can’t use what historically has been the only school fundraiser available.

A Better Option is Available

The good news is there is a better option for school libraries.

A website called www.lovemylibrary.com has taken all of the unfair characteristics of a book fair and made them fair.

Kids don’t buy books. They get free books for helping the library raise money. They get a free book for simply promoting the fundraiser whether they raise money or not.

Librarians keep 80% of the money raised to spend in a store offering more than 3,000,000 titles. If they choose case they can get 60% of that money in cash.

There’s no physical store to shop in so no child is left in the classroom unable to buy books.

And, on average, the online fundraiser raises more than 5 times the cash for librarians to spend.

So now library fundraising can be fair!!!