PTO Today

My PFA is looking for a new company for our Book Fair. We've used Scholastic in the past and want to try something new. Does anyone know of a book fair company in the New York area?

Thanks in advance.

Hello,

I have been looking as well for our school in Seaford, NY. If you have any luck please let me know. Scholastic has become user unfriendly and our Rep is down right rude. We never get enough of the books in the flyer and it takes weeks to get them on back order. I'll keep searching as well.

Thanks. We are having a problem with Scholastic, as well. They never charged us tax before and now all of a sudden they want to charge us tax. And our book fair is not a fundraiser for us. We give discounts to the children and we get books for the classrooms/library. We don't want the books to be more expensive for the children, but we don't want to lose money either. Hopefully we can find another company, but it doesn't look good. People have suggested Usborne, but we find them too expensive. I'll let you know if we find anything, too.

Wow, our school has always been charged tax by Scholastic. The school runs bookfairs, although it is the PTO moms who set up and run. The secretary has us "round up" to the next dollar to help cover tax. Not sure how much of the tax it actually covers, but must work pretty well, as we do two a year for several years now. Hope this helps.

Do you not have a sales-tax exemption certificate for your organization? You should check with your state about how to get one.

Our school runs it and yes, the school is tax expempt, but the school still has to pay taxes on the sold books. Like I said, PTO provides the manpower to run the sale, the school has the book fair. Not sure about why the tax, unless it's because families are buying the books, not the PTO or the school. Just my guess.

Usborne Books does school book fairs. Usborne Books - Educational books for kids of all ages
We have not used them, but I have heard nice things about thier book fairs.
I have seen the books before, and they are very nice!

We are trying a new company this year called Imagine-nation books-- the books seem cheaper than Scholastic-- the percentage is better I think-- 30% in cash and 10% in books from the sale-- plus teachers and staff can purchase anything for 50% list price-- You do not need a bunch of volunteers-- the company sends enough catalogs -- one for each student-- they take the catalog home, pick what they want and send it back in-- turn around seems great-- We're going to do Scholastic in the fair and Imagine-nation in the spring in time for Easter.

In NY, because the children are purchasing the books, you must charge sales tax. There is no way around it, we have tried. According to the IRS all fundraisers will be taxed at some point in the future, it was easier to start with the bigger companies. So eventually everything that is sold through the PTA as a fundraiser will be taxed, in NY anyway.
We, the PTA pays the sales tax out of the little profits that we make. We try to get merchandise and books for our library, book corner and classrooms. My problem with Scholastic is their customer service and lack of availablilty of the books that the kids want the most. Thank you for all the advice