Well I’ve had a frustrating morning so far. Today being the first Thursday of the month, I was ‘selling’ my books (I’m a children’s books distributor) at a local children’s cafe and as usual didn’t sell anything, although I had one or two sniffs of interest. But the real kick in the teeth was dropping Girl Lacer off at nursery afterwards (which is attached to a primary school) to discover that they’re having a Scholastic Bookfair today, so that’s why they didn’t respond to the mailing I sent them from the children’s book company I distribute for. Sigh, I was so hoping to get in there with my books and not actually because I want to make money from them (although future contacts to sell to would have been useful) but because a) I think the particular brand of books I sell are gorgeous, I fell in love with them (being a parent of two small children) long before I decided to start selling them and I’d love to see them in my children’s future school and b) I think the school in question is fantastic and any profit made at all from book selling through them would have gone straight back to the school in free (gorgeous) books but I can’t offer fancy bookstands etc. and my profit margin is ‘only’ 20% (although goes up to 40% if I sell over £200 of books) whereas Scholastic offer ‘up to’ 60p in every £1 of book sold, I’d love to know exactly how many books have to be sold for that 60p in every £1 is reached though. Sigh, I’ll have to see if any of the other local schools are within their grasp, but obviously being a parent as well as someone trying (at least) to run a small business, if I’m going to give away my profit margin I’d rather it go to the school my kids will end up going to!
