Book fairs

Remember when your school had a book fair and you had $5 to spend on the book of your choice to be placed in the school library?

I want to something similar based on what I heard at a recent visit to a church library. They did a book fair by purchasing books ahead of time (in their case, from Lifeway), then they displayed the books at the church and invited the congregation to purchase a book or 2 to be placed in the church library. Any books that did not sell were taken back.

Has anyone done anything like this? How about with CBD or another Christian book store? If so, could you please share any ways that you encouraged the congregation to purchase?

Thank you for your input and have a wonderfully blessed Easter!

Jenn Burwell

Library Team Leader

Forest Hill Baptist Church

Wilson, NC 27893

Jean, we have used book fairs in our church and for helping other libraries as well. It's an excellent way to add new media to your collection or to begin a library and can be done more than once. We have done this only through LifeWay book stores and I understand that it is up to the individual book store as to how they will handle it if at all. My first suggestion would be to check with the LifeWay store nearest you and work out details.

The way it has worked for us is to check with the book store and then select the media that you would like to place in the library at your church, making as many selections as you think might be purchased. You could keep them for a couple of weeks and make them available for members to buy. You can make this event as big as you would like--set up tables with various types of media on different tables--such as suggestions for children's birthdays, anniversary, memorial, or any other special group. The key is to promote--you can make it as big as you would like--serve refreshments, etc.

After having the books available for a couple of weeks, then you can return the ones which were not purchased. Normally, the book store would charge the books to your church and then give you credit for those returned. Remember that you would get a 20% discount for your media.

I don't know about CBD or other stores, but you could check on them. There might be other Christian book stores who would work with you. I once visited a small library in a rural area and they wanted to let members help them purchase media. They did it with catalogs. They had several CBD catalogs available with the books marked that they would like to have. They had a party-like atmosphere with refreshments, etc. and had a great success. So there are other ways that this can be done.

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Comments

Jenn Burwell November 12, 2012 9:05

Update for 2012: $742 worth of new material purchased by the congregation to enrich the materials we use to minister. That is mostly due to the amazing assistance at the local Lifeway store. And that only happened because of an associational meeting that I went to because I sat in front of her and her husband and we started talking about books! Love how God works to enrich our lives.
Linda Ward January 4, 2012 10:42

Encourage your church members to purchase items "in honor" or "in memory" of someone special.
Jenn Burwell June 8, 2011 21:12

Thanks, Eva Nell! I did talk to the manager at my local store and we are working on doing this in stages. 1st one is happening on June 26th!
Eva Nell Hunter June 8, 2011 8:39

Jean, we have used book fairs in our church and for helping other libraries as well. It's an excellent way to add new media to your collection or to begin a library and can be done more than once. We have done this only through LifeWay book stores and I understand that it is up to the individual book store as to how they will handle it if at all. My first suggestion would be to check with the LifeWay store nearest you and work out details.

The way it has worked for us is to check with the book store and then select the media that you would like to place in the library at your church, making as many selections as you think might be purchased. You could keep them for a couple of weeks and make them available for members to buy. You can make this event as big as you would like--set up tables with various types of media on different tables--such as suggestions for children's birthdays, anniversary, memorial, or any other special group. The key is to promote--you can make it as big as you would like--serve refreshments, etc.

After having the books available for a couple of weeks, then you can return the ones which were not purchased. Normally, the book store would charge the books to your church and then give you credit for those returned. Remember that you would get a 20% discount for your media.

I don't know about CBD or other stores, but you could check on them. There might be other Christian book stores who would work with you. I once visited a small library in a rural area and they wanted to let members help them purchase media. They did it with catalogs. They had several CBD catalogs available with the books marked that they would like to have. They had a party-like atmosphere with refreshments, etc. and had a great success. So there are other ways that this can be done.

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