New business idea-business book exchange

Here’s another new business idea that could be adapted to any small town, or to any industry, from Steve Rucinski at Small Biz CEO:

I recently went through my shelves of books and pulled out about 100 business books that I no longer need to own but am having a hard time finding a home for them. I called my library about donating them, they weren’t accepting donations. I tried to sell some on Half.com (an Ebay business) but it was more work than it was worth, so I was wondering, are there other people with the same dilema? I am sure there are millions of books, long since read or at least being ignored on shelves around the world. How could they be recirculated and benefit the seller and the buyer?

Would a Netflix model work for business books? You subscribe, choose from a selction as many as you want, return them when you want? Would that work for used business books? They are like DVD’s in that they are usually used once, read in a few weeks and almost never looked at again. What do you think, is that model workable? Is there such a service already available that would give me a greater selection than my local small town library and be a home for used books.

I immediately thought of US libraries in the hurricane damaged-areas, so I did a quick search. The American Library Association is not collecting books, but has a fact sheet on book donation.

Local libraries in my small town accept donated books to resell at book fairs. I love these! You can’t beat a wonderful book for 50 cents!

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About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.