How Does Hosting An Usborne Reading Is A Gift Book Fair Benefit You? Increase Exposure For Usborne Books Our family of books is internationally

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1 How Does Hosting An Usborne Reading Is A Gift Book Fair Benefit You? Increase Exposure For Usborne Books Our family of books is internationally acclaimed as the finest educational children s book line-up available in the marketplace today. Exposing more parents and families to this outstanding line-up at an Usborne Reading Is A Gift book fair increases interest in Usborne and your ability to sell more books in your community! Help The Schools In Your Community As a parent, you know the financial strains experienced by most schools across the country. The Usborne Reading Is A Gift book fair program allows you to make a difference by providing a fun and educational experience that actually pays dividends in cash or FREE books for each school. Increase Revenue Beyond In-Home Sales The sales from just one Usborne Reading Is A Gift book fair could net you tenfold what you can attain from one in-home party. When more kids read Usborne books and more parents see the joy in their childrens faces, these books will literally sell themselves over and over again. Imagine re-orders and new book orders coming in on a regular basis just from the exposure of one Usborne Reading Is A Gift book fair! Opportunities To Expand Your In-Home Program As you are already aware, more and more families are looking at home-based businesses to supplement their income. Parents who are exposed to Usborne books at the Usborne Reading Is A Gift book fairs will be more likely to seriously examine the Usborne Books At Home opportunity. This is an opportunity for you to expand your network of in-home sales representatives!

2 How To Get An Usborne Reading Is A Gift Book Fair Started With the FREE book and/or cash incentives that are in place for each book fair, the Usborne Reading Is A Gift book fair program literally sells itself! Here are some step-by-step procedures to get a book fair started. Remember, all it takes is implementing our suggestions, taking the time to explain the many FREE benefits to various local sponsors and then using the book fair promotional materials that are available to you to make each book fair a success! Reading Is A Gift and Usborne make it happen! Step One Use the introductory letters that are posted on the web site to introduce the benefits of hosting an Usborne book fair to schools, teachers, libraries or other potential sponsors in your community where you have some personal or professional ties. Work with your Supervisor to select the potential book fair sites that you are soliciting so that there is no cross-over among consultants. Remember, you must first check to see if any of the schools or libraries are already listed. Present the letter in person or drop it off to all potential book fair sponsors. As long as you stagger the events, there is no reason why you can t coordinate several book fairs each year in your community. The FREE books and/or cash incentives sell the concept without much effort on your part. It s important to communicate the fact that an Usborne Reading Is A Gift book fair enables parents and children to purchase quality books at reasonable prices and helps raise funds for special projects or FREE books for the classroom and library. Step Two After distributing the introductory letter, follow-up with a phone call to schedule a meeting with any interested book fair sponsor to explain the benefits of the Usborne Reading Is A Gift book fair. Keep in mind

3 that the message is clear... our main focus is providing quality reading materials for children, while at the same time providing an opportunity for each book fair sponsor to benefit with cash or FREE books. Here are some hints in dealing with the three most common objections to conducting an Usborne book fair: Your books are too expensive. Tell them inexpensive titles are selected for your book fair so that all children will be able to get a book. Prices start at $1.95 and 80% of our paperback titles are under $ There is also a quality difference. Usborne books are the highest quality, longest lasting books on the market. In fact, they carry a guarantee! If possible, show an example of an Usborne book and a Scholastic reprint of the same title. The First Encyclopedia of Animals is a great book to show. There are no books for older children or You do not have enough fiction. You need to point out that we have chapter books like the Sandy Lane series, King Arthur, Tale of Two Cities and more, plus many topics of interest to older children like Origami and Calligraphy. Your books do not come on racks like the other company. If you place books on tables and racks, you will find that children primarily shop from the books on the tables. This is because they are the right height. Some schools where we have had book fairs in the past actually take the books out of the racks for their other book fair (Scholastic) and place them on tables because they have found it to be more effective. Step Three Get a commitment, set the date to hold the book fair and then work with teachers, administration and/or sponsor officials to develop a working event timeline that ensures success for the book fair.

4 Important Facts About Book Fair Event Coordination Involve teachers, parents and book fair sponsors at the earliest possible date. Schedule the book fair to coincide with another event that already involves the parents coming to the location. It s important that you allow two weeks prior to the event for implementation of the teacher and student previews and the distribution of the Usborne Reading Is A Gift promotional materials. If there is no event planned, then ask the school or site sponsors to plan an evening Family Night when parents can come to the book fair. Work closely with teachers, administrators and event organizers to make sure all of the timetables are met for optimum sales and attendance. Encourage your book fair sponsors to recruit a staff of volunteers (teachers, parents, older students, staff, etc.) to help with event coordination. Alert local media about the book fair. Additional publicity through traditional media will bolster sales. Remember, someone always knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone. Don t be bashful. Promoting reading to our children is news! Get permission from the school or sponsor. Make sure that the promotional materials timeline is adhered to for maximum frequency of the message. Using the Usborne Reading Is A Gift promotional materials in a timely manner should result in tremendous book sales. Remember, this is a partnership between you, the book fair sponsor and the Usborne Books home office support staff.

5 Book Fair Event Timeline As soon as you are able to get a sponsor commitment, ask to be included in all out-going communications prior to the book fair event. Work with book fair sponsors to insure that they recruit volunteers to help with event coordination, logistics and event staffing. 1) Place Usborne Reading Is A Gift event posters at the book fair site two to three weeks prior to the event date. 2) Five days prior to the book fair event, schedule Teacher Previews of the books available. Distribute Teacher Wish List forms (downloaded off the FTP site or faxed copies from the home office) for teachers/organizers to fill out and post at the event site. 3) Four days prior to the event, send home the Parent s Flyer and Parent Letter #1 (downloaded from the FTP site) with each child. The Parent s Flyer promotes the Usborne Reading Is A Gift event and has a gift certificate attached so that parents can start thinking about purchasing books for their children or making a donation for the purchase of books for their child s classroom or school. 4) Three days prior to the event, coordinate Children Previews of the books. At the end of the previews, teachers or parent volunteers will give each child an Usborne Reading Is A Gift bookmark. Teachers will instruct each child to write down their favorite book choices on the back of their bookmark (for younger age groups, they may have to assist the students) and take them home and show their parents. Another option is to also include a Student Wish List which is available on the website. This form allows first

6 and second graders larger writing space for their title choices. 5) On the day before the event, distribute the Usborne Reading Is A Gift stickers to each child for them to wear home. This is a reminder to the parents not to forget the book fair the next day/evening. NOTE: Many schools already have their own timeline for book fairs. It is a great idea to ask what they have done with other companies and how they scheduled their event in the past. Working with their existing timeline will be the easiest way to run the event and the tools that EDC is providing you can be adapted to their time frame. Some schools with as many as 700 students in older grades can run through a book fair from preview to finish in 3 days. Younger grades can take up to two weeks (one week preview and one week purchasing), although one week total is more normal. Some schools allow children to bring cash directly to the preview and others do not. If they are not allowed to bring cash, children are given time during the school day to return to the book fair when they bring their money. Step Four Working with your book fair hosts, develop a promotional timeline for distribution of the Usborne Reading Is A Gift promotional materials, which include on-site posters, parent flyer with gift certificate, bookmarks with child s wish list, stickers and more. (Sample images of the promotional materials are viewable and downloadable from the FTP site. Other helpful hints, images and letters are also available on the Usborne site).

7 The Usborne Reading Is A Gift Promotional Materials/Kit Posters Bookmarks Parent s Brochure/Flyer Kid s Stickers Receipt/Order Form Booklet Downloadable Usborne Reading Is A Gift Copy And Images Introduction Letters (Two Versions) Parent s Letters (Two Versions) Teacher Letter Teacher Wish List Book Fair Reminders Press Release Newsletter Article Student Wish List Book Fair Accounts Forms (Two Versions) School/Sponsor Contract Promotional Materials Timeline Two to three weeks prior to the book fair, mark the event date on each poster and place posters at main entrance doorways, close to the event site office and in well-traveled areas of the book fair site. Five or six days prior to the book fair date, schedule a Teacher s walk through. Provide Wish List forms for each teacher to fill out with the books they would like donated to their classroom (available for download on the FTP site). Each classroom Wish List is then posted near the book fair exhibit for parents to see. Four days before the event, send home the Parent s Flyer with each child. This brochure provides information about

8 the book fair and has a gift certificate on the back for them to fill out for book donations. Another option would be to include the Book Fair Reminder form or Parent s Letter #1 (available for download on the FTP site). Three days before the event, schedule a Children s Preview. Every child will have an opportunity to look through and preview the books they want. At the Preview each child will be given an Usborne Reading Is A Gift bookmark and Parent s Letter #2 for them to take home. On the back of the bookmark is a Wish List for each student to fill out so that they can show their parents which books they would like. (Younger children may need help filling out their wish list.) Another option is to hand out the larger version of the Student Wish List that is available on the website. On the day before the event, hand out the Usborne Reading Is A Gift stickers to each child for them to wear home. This serves as a reminder to the parents not to forget the book fair the next day/evening. Step Five Setting Up Your Book Fair The books should be placed in piles on tables with a small post-it note saying last copy please order on the bottom one. Make sure that you know who is providing the tablecloths. Divide the books into categories such as: young fiction; early readers; animals; things to do; chapter books; puzzle books; etc. A simple display method is to wrap an inverted box in a tablecloth and place on a table center. Books can then be propped up against it and placed on top. You can a have a separate miscellaneous area. This is a primarily order only section for lower selling titles. This is a great place to put out your odd stock or pricier books like Encyclopedia of World History IL with

9 the please order sticker. Do not put a major seller like Dogs and Puppies as a one off copy in this area! Don t forget to have a few titles on display and available for the students younger and older siblings. You need a separate table for payments. The Teacher Wish Lists should be prominently displayed at this table. Let the school know that they are responsible for the cash till, float and calculators. At a small book fair you can keep track of every title sold. At a large multi-thousand dollar fair there is no time to do this. The total books sold can be calculated from the money received by taking the tax back out. For example, if $6,000 is collected and the tax rate is 7% you would divide $6,000 by 1.07 to get the retail total. The retail total is used to calculate the school s FREE books or cash. Remember, DO NOT FORGET TO COLLECT TAX if required! If you wish to accept credit cards, the total can be written on a regular order form together with all the information. Don t forget the phone number and billing zip. This income is effectively paid directly to you. When books are sold there is no need to list each title. Receipt booklets are provided in each book fair kit and you need to record the name, teacher, phone number if possible, full book title and list price. ALWAYS TAKE PAYMENT IN ADVANCE! Bags are needed. Inexpensive ones can be obtained from some discount stores. Try to solicit a sponsor to underwrite the cost of bags. The Usborne home office sells bags for $5 per 100. Books are often purchased one or two at a time and bags can become a surprising expense. Step Six Post Fair Close Out When the books arrive, pack in bags for each child sorted by teacher and deliver to the school. You MUST take responsibility for any back-ordered books. Send a note home letting the child know that there will be a delay. Follow-up as books become available or as you get them

10 from other consultants. BE PROFESSIONAL! If you do not thoroughly complete the book fair, you will affect not just the future of Usborne Books at that fair, but at other book fairs in the area. Prepare an invoice for the amount that the school owes you and deliver promptly.