BookFool.com » Buybacks

Scenes from Buyback Fall 2009

Luke — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:36:26 +0000

And now, a few of our favorite scenes from this year’s many Buybacks.

The Freed Hardeman Fool Crew @ Besso's

Buying for Ouachita Baptist and Henderson State at Dino's Main Street Cafe

Buying at the excellent Underground Coffeehouse in Searcy, AR. FUN FACT: Two of the full-time Fools attended Harding Univ. in Searcy.

Buying at Something Brewing in Conway, Arkansas

Getting Foolish with the water bottles at Hendrix.

Books at Dino's Main Street Cafe

Foolin' it up at NACC, Rainsville, AL

Making it rain in Searcy!!

Buying at Freed Hardeman. FUN FACT: One of our Fool's parents went to FHU.

And finally, a short video from our visit to Calhoun Community College in Tanner, AL:

Project Management: Cynical Optimism

Luke — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:09:37 +0000

BookFool is in the process of planning for our upcoming textbook buybacks, which means lots and lots of cooperation and coordination among the Fools. This semester, we appointed a Buyback Traffic Cop (yours truly) whose job is to manage the calendar, make assignments, and update Basecamp and our internal wiki with our progress. It’s project management on steroids.

I was a project/account manager in a past life, so this process brings back memories. Because BookFool is a tight team, I’m not worried about us hitting deadlines. My #1 focus this semester is efficiency and not duplicating effort. An efficient process means we can buy more of your books, which is good for everybody!

(cc) Flickr user Geodog

To me, Project Management is an expression of Cynical Optimism. In theory, project management is inherently optimistic because it assumes you can organize your team to achieve more. But it’s also inherently cynical because you have to be ultra-realistic about setting deadlines, realizing that something always comes up.

For example, if you need to have 150,000 bookmarks printed in time for your manager training, you have to get them to the printer a week before, which means getting 50 PDFs back from the designer a few days before that, which means getting the design brief TO the designer at least a week or two before that, which means compiling the brief before sending to the designer, which means nailing down all details before… (and so on).

When you’ve got a chain of events that complex, the optimist knows it’s possible, but the cynic gets antsy when it’s time to set all those deadlines. The incurable optimist says, “My team is on point. If I need it on Friday, I’ll set the deadline for Friday and all will be well.” The optimist is often disappointed because, as the cynic understands, Something always comes up.

The true cynic says, “Something always comes up. If I need it on Friday, I’ll make it due Wednesday so there’s time for tweaks.” Now, this gradual deadline creep creates problems if you try to do it in secret. People know when something is really due, and if they think you’re padding the deadlines without telling them, they’ll simply readjust the deadlines in their head to accommodate reality.

I prefer the path of Cynical Optimism that gathers the team together and says, “We can do this, guys! However, we know things come up and deadlines need a little room to move, so let’s all decide to set deadlines a few days before we really need things done. But let’s also decide to hit those earlier deadlines because something always comes up.”

Project Management in a big team is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. However, with a good team and a touch of Cynical Optimism, you’ll have everything running smoothly in no time.

Great Bad Feedback, Vol. 1

Luke — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:09:07 +0000

Aaaand we’re back! We’ve been away on vacation but are returning in full force this Monday. Some of us went beach-ward. Some of us went home. Some of us even stayed home. But we’re all refreshed and ready to kick out another killer buyback. Stay tuned on the blog for details.

And now, apropos of nothing, a great piece of bad feedback I ran across last night:

Classic. On Amazon, it says “0 of 21 people found the following review helpful.”

Transient Peddler – Yep, that’s us!

Kris — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:41:18 +0000

Today is the last day of buybacks for the Spring semester. For nearly a month we’ve been buying books out of our temporary locations in coffee shops, cafes, retail shops, parking lots, old Taco Bells, and more.

The temporary nature of our buybacks is why some municipalities define us as a Transient Peddler, one who sets up temporary locations for one’s trade.

But what if I have more books to sell?

Why Temporary Locations?

Because we were students when we started BookFool.com, we knew from the beginning that students needed more money for their textbooks at the end of every semester. But how to accomplish that?

Clearly the current system is broken, so you start from scratch. First you create a website and build a proprietary buyback program based on an entirely new way of pricing books that beats the socks off of the campus bookstore.

Then you keep your costs down. Maintaining a permanent location is an unnecessary cost if your focus is used textbooks. Your local bookstore must sell pencils, paper, sweatshirts, caps, greeting cards, day planners, candy bars, Scantron cards, blue exam books, and more…all at a significant markup…just to pay the rent on their location.

We have no interest in selling pencils, so we keep it simple and partner with local merchants. They get rent money and increased foot traffic. We get a place to conduct business. You get better prices on your books. And the local economy gets an infusion of cash. It’s a win-win-win-win.

In that context, peddler has a nice ring to it, we think. And tens of thousands of our customers think so too!

Thanks for the great buyback, all! See you again soon,
-The BookFool.com Team

14 Locations Open Today!

Luke — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:00:19 +0000

Hey Fools. This is just a quick post to let you know that, as of today, we’ve got 14 locations running at the same time. So if it takes a few hours to reply to your email, don’t take it personal!

See the LOCATIONS page for details on each of these, and don’t forget that some of these locations are running next week too (as well as 2 new ones).

Austin Peay
Belmont
Calhoun Community College (opening Tuesday)
Campbellsville Univ. – NEW LOCATION!
ETSU
Fisk Univ.
Gadsden State Community College
Harding Univ.
Itawamba Community College
Lipscomb Univ.
NACC: Northeast Alabama Community College
NEMCC: Northeast Mississippi Community College
Ole Miss
Pellissippi State
TSU: Tennessee State Univ.
University of Arkansas

On another note, we have really enjoyed hearing from y’all by email and phone this week. The response has been amazing! Feel free to contact us or call to tell us your Foolish story.