Funds Raised for Global Literacy:
$10,184,799.20
Books Re-Used or Recycled:
63,271,794

Sore Back-Back Home-Home Runs

Posted by Jack on 06.17.2008 at 7:57 am

This week will be reports and pictures from the Better World Books Warehouse (or “Green House” as we know it) in South Bend as we conduct our yearly meeting week.

Sorry about the title, I think I’ve been watching too much “Wheel of Fortune” so the “Before and After” thing was in my head…  In any event, let me explain:

When I was hired, eons ago Abby Rae LaCombe (current Rocky Mountain + Canada RD) and I cruised to the Green House and were instructed in the ways of the force, errrr book acquisitions and company policies.  But also, to make sure we understood the challenges of working in the warehouse we spent a day scanning books (a monumental task, each person here scans 110-160 per hour!) and sorting heavy boxes, and let me tell you, I was sore afterwards.  Coming back and seeing “job sharing” on the schedule I was slightly concerned for how I’d feel like an old man tomorrow trying to get myself out of bed.

After getting out we were ready for fresh air and rolled over to the local park with refreshments and a grill, but most importantly, large red balls for KICKBALL!  The showdowns were fierce, the refreshments were cold and seeing everyone was fantastic.  After I was assaulted by a young assassin with a water gun and schooled on the kickball field (notice the picture below, who hurts their shoulder playing kickball???  I seriously must suck), I decided it was time to stick to the grill area and engage in Better World Books #1 out-of-work pastime, ultimate frisbee.

It feels good to be back “home,” if only for a week.  Burning the candle at both ends… commence!


(The Acquisitions Team (Atlanta, represent!) fresh off drinking the company kool-aid in the veritable “War Room,” emails and calls their contacts, furiously trying to get books in)

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A Well Oiled Machine

Posted by Jack on 06.17.2008 at 7:33 am

This week will be reports and pictures from the Better World Books Warehouse (or “Green House” as we know it) in South Bend as we conduct our yearly meeting week.

To see a well-oiled machine do its job is truly a marvel.  It sounds cliche, perhaps it sounds like a vacuous statement when were so inundated with machinery and technology in our own lives from iPhones to disposals to a little hot water in the shower, but the fact remains that there’s something about a fine tuned apparatus that catches the eye and the imagination.

The Green House presented two great versions of this to me today.  On one hand, I saw the packaging machine, which is pretty mesmerizing.  It takes thousands of orders each day and cranks them out under the careful supervision of a number of finely trained employees.  It’s definitely a unique sight (that I’ve included below for your enjoyment).

But more amazing is how we’ve created a system incorporating ideas from Toyota’s and Motorola’s plants referred to in the business world as “Six Sigma.”  I won’t get into the specifics but I have to say watching the whole warehouse work is amazing.  Hundreds of people working as the proverbial bees in the hive–and let me tell you the Green House buzzes–each with individual tasks all working together to get you your books, as fas as possible, as cheap as we can and in the best condition that we can offer.


West Coast Director, Natasha Harris, looking regal as per usual

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Better World Books Week!

Posted by Jack on 06.16.2008 at 10:13 am

Hey all, reporting here from BWB week in the lovely (and warm) South Bend, IN.  Today we outsiders will be getting tours of the revamped warehouse and doing some warehouse related work.  Pictures and stories coming throughout the week, it’s sure to be good.  Already, having played a bit of billiards last night with my amigos in acquisitions and a subsequent delicious breakfast at the pancake house, it’s good to be back and sure to only get better (especially at company kickball tonight when Team Gold owns Team Green!)

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Happy Father’s Day

Posted by admin on 06.13.2008 at 12:09 pm

In honor of the coming Father’s Day, we asked our newest dad, CTO Andy Warzon how he was preparing to involve books in the raising of the newest member of the Warzon clan.

Our baby room, weeks before my wife is due, is full of books already… old ones, new ones, little infant books, grade-school level educational books… we’ll never be short of reading material. I can’t wait to show our baby all the great books I read as kid, the ones that informed and excited me about the world, and the ones that stretched my imagination. [ed. note: Andy's wife just had the baby!  Congrats!]

The dad with the most experience (having raised his own children as well as Kreece, Xavier and Jeff when the company started), CEO David Murphy weighed in at the NCFL blog with the following:

Father’s Day is Sunday, and each year around this time I tend to look back to when my children were young. As the father of three fantastic children, I so clearly and vividly recall many moments curled up with my children reading to them, at all times of day and night…on the kitchen floor, in their forts, on old sofas and beat up bean bags, in bed and in the car.

Few moments in life can compare to the wonders of opening up the new world of language and communication and wonder and awe to your child. From those first moments of seeing and understanding new words, to now their collective love for ‘devouring a book’ — they possess the tools they need to be independent and to help them discover who they are and what they are destined to become in this world.

So, Happy Father’s Day all.  I took the time to send my own father “The Economics of Happiness” and “Go Green, Live Rich” to help his quest (to change his own life from NYC finance type to NYC finance type with a smaller carbon footprint).  One of the most important things he taught me was to educate myself to do the things I wanted to do, so I’m hoping I can help him do the same or at least convey that his message to me stuck.

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Book pReview: No Wave

Posted by Jack on 06.12.2008 at 11:00 am

I’ve read some quality books lately, I’m currently plowing through “Green to Gold” and just cleaned up “Made to Stick.”  I also polished “The Alchemist” on two flights from here to Chicago and back (opting for the hypnotics of Coelho’s text rather than the standard Jameson on the rocks to get me through).

Made to Stick was great, Green to Gold is a little amateurish in parts for someone already involved in the scene but it’s a great conversion book for the old guard and I’ll elaborate on my feelings on the Alchemist soon enough.

Those reviews are coming, but what I’m really excited about is a new book by Byron Coley and well known avant-garde Sonic Youth guitarist/indie rock historian Thurston Moore: “No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980.”  Usually I bear no particular love for art books, per se, however their previous effort re: CBGB’s, 2005′s “CBGB & OMFUG: Thirty Years From the Home of Underground Rock,” was polished and great so I expect nothing less here.  However, CBGB’s attacks 30 years, digging deep and producing profound moments from a fabulous collection, how can this new book capture the camera flash of a movement that enthralled and destroyed the Lower East Side in it’s brief 4-5 year shelf-life?

Well, that remains to be seen, but I trust that the effort will be fruitful in learning for the uninitiated and will have pearls for even the most accomplished in the genre.  “No Wave” a term said with wink and a kick in the rear to the “new wave” of The Cure and such bands was a music devoid of the previous tropes of rock and is to be particularly appreciated for it’s elevation of female rockers (who dominated the scene unlike any before it, save “serious musics” such as opera).  As someone entrenched in the roots of John Cage over John Lee Hooker and Steve Reich rather than Steve Perry, I’m ready for a book that shows the visceral and raw nature of a music that pulled no punches about displeasure with the current music situation.  I’m ready for No Wave.

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Hippie 2.0?

Posted by admin on 06.10.2008 at 1:43 pm

News source Profy.com has an article by editor Cyndy Aleo-Carreira about us, entitled: Hippie 2.0: Better World Books Is Proving You Can Make Money Being Green:

There are those who would assume that running a business that keeps old textbooks out of landfills, takes those books and sells them at a low price, and then buys carbon credits to offset emissions that result from shipping those books is actually a charity. How could a company ever make money by trying to do good things for the environment? Better World Books is out to prove those doubters wrong.

Read more over yonder.

[ed. note: Now I know the betterworld.com team isn't far from Haight Ashbury but as a New Yorker I resent this hippie tag, harumph.  (kidding!  thanks for the support, Cyndy!)  However, we've actually raised $4.5 million, not just $2.75 (the difference is the money we've raised for libraries)!]

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Suggestion Box, Now With 100% Less Ink Smearing!

Posted by admin on 06.09.2008 at 1:58 pm



It’s all well and good when I come up with a super sweet idea for the site, but it doesn’t happen every day, whereas, I’m willing to wager that out of the thousands of you out there that there are awesome ideas every hour.

Follow the lead of your fellow readers (including Felipe on the last post) and leave a comment about what you would like to see us do.  You’ll never know what we’re capable of until you test us (and maybe we’ll never know either!).

So get all Web 2.0 on us, forget the comment and suggestion box, forget the smearing ink and get typing, the community knows what it wants!

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ReUse First

Posted by admin on 06.09.2008 at 8:31 am

A new program that Better World Books is offering to waste management and recycling centers is called the Better World Books ReUseFirst Program.  The idea is that there are plenty of books that still hold value and end up at our local recycling centers to be destroyed.  What we would like to do is use our new PreScreenReUsed” before they are sent off for recycling.  In the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle chain, this is a better solution for the environment, not to mention our company and our literacy initiatives.  feature to sort out which books can be “

Feedback among the waste management community tells us that there is a great deal of excitement about this new program offering.  Most waste management centers have a longstanding commitment to the environment and appreciate the opportunity to keep these books in the market as opposed to sending them off to be pulped.  While the ReUseFirst Program does require and extra step in sorting, the program is free and in many cases can return revenue for the materials we receive.

Send an email to library@betterworldbooks.com for more information.

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Animated Video

Posted by admin on 06.04.2008 at 3:43 pm

Have you seen our latest video?  We’ve left reality and delved into the deep dark (or shallow bright as the case may be) world of animation!  It’s short, it’s informative, it’s short, it’s right here (and at our YouTube page):

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