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I would. Better World Books has always rubbed me the wrong way with their advertising. They donate a tiny fraction of their profit to charity but their whole sc

by jjeaff 4y ago

I would. Better World Books has always rubbed me the wrong way with their advertising. They donate a tiny fraction of their profit to charity but their whole schtick makes it seem like they are a non-profit. Especially their "book donation" boxes that they put all over the place. Which they turn around and sell for a pure profit. I also suspect they are just donating their worthless books but valuing those worthless books at some sort of face value to pump up their donation numbers.

lancesells 4y ago
https://about.betterworldbooks.com/impact/ https://about.betterworldbooks.com/impact/
- jjeaff 4y ago
  Those look like big numbers (and interestingly they seem to have not budged upward since prior to 2019). But one must understand that the book business, especially the textbook business deals with a lot of worthless books that you have to find a way to get rid of. So anyone in the business donates or trashes/recycles a ton of books. Especially when you have book donation boxes all over the country. As for the cash, they have been around for about 20 years now and have revenues around $65 million a year. So $25m in lifetime donations is not as much as it seems. Also, they don't say they donated that much cash, they said they have "raised" it. Which usually means through programs like asking customers to donate in addition to their order. But I just remembered that they were sold to Better World Libraries in 2019, who is a non-profit associated with the internet archive. (It seems that I made a similar comment on HN back then but I have little recollection of it.) So maybe all of their profits go to a good cause now, I can't really find many details on the acquisition. But they were originally VC and PE funded. So I wonder if the business has dwindled like many book/textbook resale companies have over the last few decades. I can't imagine that a non-profit would pay any kind of premium for a for-profit business.

by jjeaff 4y ago

lancesells 4y ago

https://about.betterworldbooks.com/impact/ https://about.betterworldbooks.com/impact/

jjeaff 4y ago
Those look like big numbers (and interestingly they seem to have not budged upward since prior to 2019). But one must understand that the book business, especially the textbook business deals with a lot of worthless books that you have to find a way to get rid of. So anyone in the business donates or trashes/recycles a ton of books. Especially when you have book donation boxes all over the country. As for the cash, they have been around for about 20 years now and have revenues around $65 million a year. So $25m in lifetime donations is not as much as it seems. Also, they don't say they donated that much cash, they said they have "raised" it. Which usually means through programs like asking customers to donate in addition to their order. But I just remembered that they were sold to Better World Libraries in 2019, who is a non-profit associated with the internet archive. (It seems that I made a similar comment on HN back then but I have little recollection of it.) So maybe all of their profits go to a good cause now, I can't really find many details on the acquisition. But they were originally VC and PE funded. So I wonder if the business has dwindled like many book/textbook resale companies have over the last few decades. I can't imagine that a non-profit would pay any kind of premium for a for-profit business.