[CALIBK12] Book Fairs-Miss Nelson

[Susan Dubin]

Actually, Mrs. Nelson's is in LaVerne which is in Orange County. They have a wonderful selection of high quality books. We have them come for our one day Jewish Literature for Children Conference in Los Angeles and they have always been very accommodating. We used them for a school book fair and loved the selection and the service, BUT the cash profit was much less than Scholastic with no bonus books, so we decided that we couldn't use them again for money-making purposes. Book fairs make up 90% of our budget.

Susan Dubin
Off-the-Shelf Library Services
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Darla Brown 
  To: Janie Scott ; calibk12 at lists.sjsu.edu 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 8:20 AM
  Subject: Re: [CALIBK12] Book Fairs-Miss Nelson


  Hi Janie: Actually, Mrs. N is based in Fresno.quite a distance from La Jolla. As they drive to you for delivery and re-orders-as opposed to FedEx-ing-I  can't begin to imagine how that would work.

   

  I used Mrs. Nelson in my junior high, and it was a success. I loved the selection of numerous publishers as opposed to only Scholastic, and the bigger selection of hard-covers. But I had much less success with my pre-Christmas high school book fair this year. First, I was told that they "don't send the rolling cases to high schools." Trying to fit everything on tables was difficult to say the least. When I told them immediately that this was a problem, they offered to bring me some wire "bookshelves." They arrived Wed. evening after I'd already gone home (fair was Mon.-Fri.). Though I re-ordered my out-of-stock items daily, only once did I receive a re-order-of harmonicas and hackey-sacks, not books. Mrs. N advertises help w/ set-up, take down, and accounting. None of that occurred. As a matter of fact, I couldn't get anyone to return my calls on the last day of my fair, so I didn't know whether to take my "percentage" of books out before taxes or after, and of course I couldn't begin packing until that was done. It was a bit of a mess.

   

  I have not tried Scholastic at the high school level, but I think I may be forced to give it a go next school year.  

   

  Mrs. Darla Brown, LMT, M.Ed.

  Teacher Librarian

  Garces Memorial High School

  "Home of Athletes and Scholars"

  661-327-2578 x133

  dbrown at garces.org

   

   

  From: calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu [mailto:calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu] On Behalf Of Janie Scott
  Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 7:52 PM
  To: calibk12 at lists.sjsu.edu
  Subject: [CALIBK12] Book Fairs-Miss Nelson

   

  While we are on the subject, we just started talking about switching from Scholastic to Miss Nelson next year.  Can anyone give me information about how that has worked for you? Particularly if you are a good distance away (we are in La Jolla and they are LA based, I believe).

   

  Thanks for your wisdom,

   

  Janie Scott

  Librarian, 

   

  The Children's School

  2225 Torrey Pines Lane

  LaJolla,Ca 92037



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