SBA Services & Publications

Our intention is to build up gradually a range of items which help you help children come to books with interest and pleasure.

New

The SBA’s new handbook:

How to Set Up and Run a School Bookshop

At last our completely rewritten and updated handbook will be available in February. If you’re thinking of setting up your own bookshop in school, this handbook is essential. If you already run one, the new section on ‘How to Keep Going’ is full of ideas and suggestions. It’s laid out logically and sequentially to take you from start to finish in the most practical way possible. Sections include:

Part 1 What is a school bookshop
Includes information on the school bookshop movement itself.
Part 2 Why set one up
Educational, cultural, social and simple, practical reasons to convince either yourself or, if need be, others too.
Part 3 How to set one up
Includes the planning stage (eg. what kind of bookshop, the site, how much time and money is involved, etc.) and putting plans into operation (eg. your book supplier, choosing stock, furniture, etc.).
Part 4 Opening a school bookshop
PR and publicity, inviting authors, opening ceremony.
Part 5 Running a school bookshop (How to keep going)
Publicity, creating the ‘atmosphere’, encouraging sales, special events, activities and competitions.
Part 6 Profiles of school bookshops
Infant, Junior, Middle and Secondary,school bookshops described by teachers who already run their own school bookshop.
Part 7 Useful sources of information
Price £1.20.

The SBA’s DIY School Bookshop Unit

If you can’t afford the price of commercially produced units and you have a competent Do-it-Yourselfer to hand (a willing dad, a helpful secondary school woodwork department, etc.), our detailed, professionally designed plans may be the answer. At present day prices you should be able to build your own five-shelf, lockable (and if you want, mobile) school bookshop unit for between £30 and £35 (assuming no labour charges). That’s about a third of the cost of a ready-made unit. Our plans include full assembly instructions and materials list.
Price £1.00.

Authorgraphs

This is the centre-fold author profile from Books for Keeps which can be used as an author display piece.
Authorgraph No. 2 Penelope Lively
Authorgraph No. 3 Malcolm Saville
Authorgraph No. 5 Pat Hutchins
Price 40p each.

Book Bank Savings Cards

For school bookshops, book clubs, book fairs – indeed anywhere books are sold to children – a savings card scheme can help offset the price of books. Most schools use the idea. We’ve printed this grid on the back of paperback covers with a space for children to enter their names. There is room in the circle to record how much has been saved so that you know each child’s credit at a glance. There is a good variety of different book covers, for individuality, and each card costs 5p. Minimum order 20 cards (i.e. £1 in all).

Poster Packs

These are proving to be extraordinarily popular as an easy way to brighten up and create lively, colourful book atmospheres in book corners, libraries and school bookshops. We have two packs, one for primary, the other for secondary schools, made up of about a dozen publishers’ posters. We change the contents of each pack roughly every four to five months as we obtain new material from the publishers. If you have a special request (eg. a girls’ school, a nursery class, a middle school, a special event), let us know and we’ll try to oblige. It all depends on what we have available. We charge 90p each which covers postage, folding and packing. You could of course write to a dozen or so publishers and get your publicity free but when you add up the cost of stamps and bear in mind that you may or may not get suitable posters, it’s probably easier, quicker and cheaper to write for our packs.

Badges

From time to time we have on offer metal badges from publishers and others which aren’t generally available elsewhere. At present we have

Books for Keeps OK (55 mm diameter)

Piccolo Guess What (55 mm diameter)

I’m a Sparrow fan (45 mm diameter)

Price 10p each (minimum order 5 badges).

Bags

Real Penguin paper bags to add a bit of authenticity to your bookshop. Price £1.20 per 100.

Advisory Service

We try to answer any question put to us about children’s books. Apart from school bookshops themselves which we know quite a bit about, we like to think we’re a good place to start with if you have a problem or a query. If we can’t answer your enquiry straight off the top of our heads, we’ll put you in touch with someone who can.

If you want any of these items, please use the order form on page 24 or write to the SBA at Lee. All cheques and postal orders payable to the School Bookshop Association.