However, you get less money than you think sellign through them, you remove a lot of books from your local area by sending them away, and you lose local revenue (tax and income) by doing so .

1. For every $100 book you get $17 for, there are 50 books you could sell for a buck or 2 that BWB sells for $1 or less, and still give you just 17% or so. If you do the math, you will find you lost money. If you use friends organizations to run your booksales, then the library can avoid staff costs, so the numbers still fall against BWB. If memory serves, they also discard books that do not sell after a time, so those books might be total losses of income to you, which might otherwise be sold locally or given to a local literacy effort.

2. Some areas do not have a lot of books to begin with, and by sending ex-library or donated books out of your area, you actually may be doing a disservice to literacy efforts and reading programs in your area.

3. Many people sell books online now. But if books that went to BWB were sold locally instead, the income would stay in the area, and more professional shops and sellers would even pay local taxes on the goods – taxes that support local libraries.

BWB is definitely a 2 edged sword. Yes they saw a big rise in income this year. But that money came from somewhere.

And as for worthy causes – St. Vincent DePaul (and other donor organizations) puts more far money into charity per dollar then BWB.

You now have a customer for life BWB. I am kicking myself for signing up on Amazon Prime now.

Enjoy the Ann Coulter books you buy from companies that do not care about future generations. Al Gore didn’t invent the idea of creating sustainable funding for non profits …he just invented the internet.

BWB has been wonderful to work with, and I’m so glad they’ve opened a retail store in our city as well. Now I can give them my business as an individual customer in addition to being a “corporate” customer.

Hurray for a company that gives me hope for doing good *and* doing well at the same time!

Jon
http://WoodMarvels.com – Create Unique Memories

Thanks also to Dave for representing Mishawaka, Matt for closing down the Linebacker Lounge more than once with us, Rahul for giving a damn, and everyone else who has supported us in our work. We believe we’ve found a market-based mechanism to fund literacy, and we’re going to push as hard as we can to be the best bookstore in the world.

–Xavier
Co-Founder, Better World Books

Can’t you just accept that there is a business that is making money AND doing good in the world?

I am personally a huge fan of BWB, and am leading a book drive with them right now through Invisible Children.

Great job, guys.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with giving money to groups that you support as long as you uphold your responsibility to shareholders and they are on board with your plans. If you have charitable ambitions rooted in your mission and vision then I’m sure you attract a different kind of investor. I’m not sure if BWB worked with them at all but there was a very active group of ND Alums called Irish Angels that love ideas like this. For a smaller company it makes a lot of sense to use that as a marketing edge as well.

For example Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. 1 and Gone with the Wind