Stephanie Elam’s article, Building better world a book at a time, published July 2, 2000 on cnn.com. http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/07/01/mainstreet.books/ is a great example of what a little initiative and hard work can do. Elam puts the spotlight on Xavier Helgesen, and his partners, Kreece Fuchs and Jeff Kurtzman, who started the company Better World Books. The trio’s idea for Better World Books started when they were in college, trying to sell back their used textbooks to the university. As we have all surely experienced, the university wouldn’t buy a majority of their books back, so the guys started selling their books on half.com. Soon after, they decided to hold book drives, which were an immediate hit. Their first drive in 2002 collected roughly 2,000 books which were then sold for $20,000. Within a few years, the company branched out from just textbooks to include drives at libraries with every kind of book imaginable.
In order to get a little exposure, Helgesen, Fuchs and Kurtzman attended an ALA conference where they proceeded to hear atrocious stories about the libraries they were advertising to. Helgesen talks of libraries that literally dumped books down a well at night because they were unable to shelve or recycle the books.
In the seven years since Better World Books has been operating, the founders have managed to expand their warehouse in Mishawka, Indiana to house more than 2 million books. Every day they bring in about 40,000 new books and they now have projected revenue in 2009 of $31 million.
Like Amazon, Better World Books offers great prices on everything ranging from picture books to text books. The cheapest books can be as little as $3.50, to $100 text books. Not only does this company offer books at a cheap price, they also do not charge for shipping, and they donate 5 to 10 percent of their revenue to libraries and literacy programs around the world.
Better World Books provides a great alternative for libraries that are forced to weed and get rid of books they no longer have room for. Now, consumers have the opportunity to purchase literature that they otherwise might not have been able to. I have had many textbooks that I wasn’t able to sell back, and I wish I would have had an outlet to donate and make use of my old books. Better World Books also does not charge any shipping fees, no matter how many books are ordered, so I would probably use it over sites like Amazon, especially knowing a portion of my proceeds went to help libraries and literacy programs.