Comment by arjie
14 hours ago
My daughter receives books through this program and I was curious how it was sustained at a $2.5/book wholesale cost.
Interestingly, the coordinating body that selects books, facilitates distribution, and negotiates wholesale pricing is the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, but per-book funding is actually entirely through local charities and so on. This means that where charities are unable to act as partners, children will not receive books, but it also means that the program can operate by growing and shrinking as local support (including from state and local government grants) comes online and goes offline while keeping the overhead for local partners low.
Dolly Parton came up with the initial local structure for her region in Tennessee and David Dotson of Dollywood scaled the operation using this decentralized model. Very impressive structure that makes this sustainable.
Here’s the interview where he talks about it: https://www.endbookdeserts.com/dolly-parton-imagination-libr...
Reminds me a bit of how Andrew Carnegie funded building public libraries: he would only build one if the local community agreed to provide books and operate it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library
Regarding cost per unit. I think the publisher likes this type of partner because they can really get their initial order volume up high without much risk. This allows them to have a super low cost per unit, maximizing profit, from the start.
Yup, and the “industry standard” wholesale discount publishers give to e.g. bookstores is usually 55%
That seems like an incredible discount. Can I assume then that bookstores are competing against each other via very minute (perhaps one or two dollar) price discounts while still maintaining a high profit margin?
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> initial order volume
None of the books you get through this program are new releases. But they are printed special for imagination library.
This structure is (I would argue) a form of mutual aid. Alcoholics Anonymous famously operates under a similar structure. Mutual aid is very popular among Anarchists and is one of the most fundamental tactics of Anarchism, Food not Bombs probably being the most famous mutual aid movements that is explicitly Anarchists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid
Dolly Parton was famous for her embrace of anarchist sympathies.
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some governments provide funding -- Tennessee has been covering half the costs statewide
https://www.wbir.com/article/life/people/dolly-parton/tennes...
Really glad to see this as the top comment.
Parton did a lot of very nice things and was a great contributor to society in good and decent ways that many of her wealth peers totally fail.
But there has since her passing been an element of myth and folklore that has elevated those accomplishments beyond reality.
Her library is a great idea and her support was notable, but the funding in large part comes from government grants and other donors.
To a large degree, the library program is also your tax dollars at work.
Funding is easy to get once you have an impressive and demonstrably good program. But without Dolly's work (and yes, the work of people she brought on to carry out her vision), none of this program would currently exist.
Money is fuel, but it needs an engine. Dolly designed and built the engine.
All of the books I’ve received through this program have been paid for by the local library and other city funds.
I can also walk into the library and there will be a shelf of free childrens books. Not used, brand new. Stacks of them to take home and keep.
The engine already existed, our public library system.
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Perhaps you can expand on why you think that is a bad idea.
I don't! I think it was a great idea. But I think people commonly misunderstand the way the program operates, assuming Parton herself was funding it, and I'm glad somebody highlighted its structure.