To: John Hefty
Just wanted to forward the “above” email I received after our Give A Book program today. Everything went great. The kid’s were so excited. A little girl came to me and asked for an extra book. At first I told her no because we didn’t have any extras. Then she told me “That’s too bad. I want to give one to my Mom, she’s in jail.” My heart just dropped John. I immediately got the little girl another book. This book really touches the children and delivers a powerful message. We have several sponsors wanting to do this program and I only hope we have enough books to fulfill the orders.
Today was a very touching experience for me and my staff. I feel very privileged to be able to offer this program to our children. Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity. This is the most rewarding “job” I’ve ever had.
Sincerely,
Marlene F
Star Publishing Co.

I purchased my business in October. I have had very successful craft shows and fund raisers since that time. I have found that the two favorite items in my life other than husband and children is my laptop and printer! One thing I have found most successful is the Home Party business. People just love when you come to their homes and display the books. It gives them a more relaxed atmosphere without pressure, and they have a good long chance to read the books before purchasing them. I recommend them to anyone! I usually make about $300-$500 per party! They sure are a hit. I average about 4 per month. Sometimes I even give specials to increase sales, then I give back a percentage to my hostess, and she is equally happy!

One thing I wanted to say is Thank you so much to the office staff of Create-A-Book, Inc. I got a chance to talk about marketing properly and ideas to get involved in more fund raising! There is absolutely no one around me introducing these books except, ME! I just landed 2 fund raisers with elementary schools in my area! One will start next week for 1, 175 children. The other one is a smaller elementary school with about 400-500 kids. I am so excited to start these and also a little nervous, but I am sure this will be a hit! It’s funny, now the kids refer to me as “the book lady”, and you know, I’m okay with that! My kids love telling other children what the books are about…little salesmen!….thanks kids! And Thanks Create-A-Book for putting up with my many phone calls and orders upon orders! See you after the “book making” hibernation! Good luck to the rest of you too!

Gloria S
Gloria’s Book Bag

Dear Mr. Hefty,

I have had wonderful success since day one. I paid back my initial investment after my first arts and craft show. That is almost unheard of in most small businesses. I then went on to finish the year ahead of my projections. The books sold great! Most people ordered more than one. I was very pleased to find out that people loved these kinds of book as much as I did.

I have focused on arts and crafts shows and booths at Baby Superstores. These have both been good avenues. My plans this year are to expand into hospitals, doctors offices, and also work on the McGruff program. You offer great marketing programs for these avenues.

I want to thank you for the excellent product you produce. This has been a great part-time business. I am a mother with three small children. I love the flexibilty and the wonderful income I can make in a short period of time. It’s also a lot of fun. With this type of product I have noticed the customers are so upbeat and excited about their purchases. I have received many calls to thank me for the product and told me stories of how much the children loved the books. I even recieved Christmas cards from some of my customers! This is an extra perk that I find very rewarding.

Thank you again for your product and support!

Hi,
We have enclosed a copy of the news article where we were featured in our local newspaper. We have also been featured on CBS Good Morning Show and mentioned in an issue of Seventeen Magazine. The exposure has been great thus far. Our mother is in marketing, so for us, it have been easy. The books Create-A-Book offers makes the product easy to sell. We’re busy with our school obligations (we both are maintaining a 4.0 average our junior year). With the help of our mother, we are however, securing more book sponsors for low income children. Our local police department has agreed to purchase McGruff books for children at the Boys and Girls Club. We will be placing that order soon!!!

Wish us luck,
Adrienne

Merry Christmas

I signed up with Create-A-Book just about 6 months ago. Create-A-Book has been incredibly good to me. You have helped me with the technical side, sales and worry over getting books out to my customers. Your staff is simply a pleasure to work with and refreshingly knowledgeable! My best sellers have been Create-A-Book Books.

With Christmas 2 days away, and with my online website only 3 months old, I am amazed to know that it is working so quickly. We aren’t rich, but for almost never leaving my home and 5 children, we’re doing great and I have you to thank.

It is a pleasure to work with such a great company and I look forward to seeing what you come up with next. My customers and I think you are the best ever!

Thank you for everything
Sue P
Uniquely Gifted

Dear Mr. Hefty,

First I’d like to express my appreciation for the phenomenal support from you and your staff in answering all my questions and getting me set up as a dealer. This is the perfect business for me while I’m in graduate school to become an Elementary Teacher, as children’s literature is my main focus of study. I’m amazed at how easy it was to set up accounts with five stores – the books really sell themselves. I’m looking forward to approaching three hospitals with the Baby Book Give Away when I receive the artwork from Dave. I’m also eager to approach some local car dealerships with the Book Give Away idea you presented in the training manual.”

Theresa W.
Anchorage, Alaska

Dear Dave,

As you know, I have received my conventional book software and I am so pleased that I made the decision to go with your personalized books business venture.

Although this is my first week to work with the books, they are getting great response. They virtually sell themselves. The art work and illustrations are of the highest caliber. You apparently have some very talented and dedicated people on your staff. I have already setup four accounts with the local merchants within the first two days of this week. I am very excited with he way things are going.

I am looking forward to making lots of new little friends with these great children’s books. I hope I can play a part in teaching children to understand if you can read and follow instructions, there are no limits in what you can achieve. After all, our children are a very large part of what life is all about and they are our future.

Please extend my thanks to the staff. You are a great bunch of people to do business with.

Sincerely,
Marilyn
Freeport, Texas

“I’m happy to say that I received my software package and safety bind machine yesterday as you had promised. I can’t wait to get started in my new business! I want to thank you both for your patience in answering my numerous questions over the phone before I made the decision.

I’m currently in graduate school to become a reading specialist, and personalized books are products which I truly believe will motivate children to read. I am also a mother of two, and several years ago I ordered some personalized books through the mail for my daughters. Imagine how disappointed I was to receive cheap stapled paperback books to give as gifts! Of course the girls enjoyed hearing their names in the stories, but these were not books that I was proud to share with anyone. In contrast, I was very impressed when I received my hardcover samples from your company. Several of my friends have also commented on the quality of these books.

Thanks again for your support.
Sincerely,
Susan C.

I Just wanted to say Thank You for all the assistance. My family and I are very excited about this new venture. In fact, Just from looking at the quality and versatility of these books, I know our business going to take off like a rocket.

Thought I should tell you – my husband, Lenny, cannot wait to come home from work to see what books I’ve put together during the day! Please just keep up the Wonderful work you’ve done with these books. Once again, thank you for your time and support. I look forward to a long-lasting relationship with Create-A-Book.

Sincerely,
Andrea W.
Nico’s Publications

“Thank you in assisting me in getting started in my new business creating personalized books. Things are happening so fast! I did a show this weekend at the Kid’s Expo! The attendance was estimated at 60,000 people. The response was overwhelming. I gave out over 1,500 of the well-designed and colorful brochures: two daycare centers (one was Kindercare) approached me with fund raiser opportunities and McGruff days, as well as several advertisers! Almost immediately I started getting calls on my voice mail number for brochures and order forms.

I have enclosed pictures from the show for you to share with some of the folks at Create-A-Book who helped me get started. Keep up the good work and keep those new products coming!

Again, thank you for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Deneise S.
Creative Publishing

Dear John,

I held a promotion in one of the medium size malls over a three day period and sold 180 books. I was absolutely delighted with the results and in fact, on the Saturday, we lost business because the kiosk was so busy and people did not want to Queue up. I am mailing you today photographs etc. of our new concept display.

Best Regards,
Ron

Hi!

I have been with Create-A-Book for some time now, and have been working out of my home. Last week, I just got my own store in a local mall and I am looking for more Hefty products to sell. I will be there thru Christmas and hopefully longer! My store is called “Brenda’s From Dealers.”

This business has been a lot of fun for me! We just finished participating in the annual “Back to School Bash” at the state fairgrounds here in Columbia, SC and it was a big success for us. We got to meet the Governor and we had great media exposure and lots of sales!

We were first spotted by WIS TV in another mall during Easter (with the Easter bunny!) and they liked your products so much, that they encouraged another local business to sponsor us for free for this event that normally would have cost thousands of dollars to attend. With all the contacts we have recently established, we are looking forward to our business growing much more this year.

By the way, every time we talk to a mall about your products, we always get a very favorable rent offer because they feel that these personalized books are a good draw for customers.

Thanks!
Brenda C

Dear Create-A-Book,

We have only been in this business for 10 months and are already starting to make money! We are doing craft shows and home book shows. The home book shows are really paying off. On average am selling 20 books/items per show, which makes quite a tidy profit for only two hours of selling time. (Two home shows sold over 35 books) For incentive I give the host a free book of choice and 10% of sales (in Create-A-Book dollars). I am trying to do at least 4 shows per month and am having no problem with that as people are asking me to give them a home show – only in the beginning did I have to try to get people to have one!! We also plan on working on the Give A Book program in the new year.

Out of the almost 400 books sold, I have never had one upset customer!!! Now that’s Hot stuff!!

Thanks to all of you at Create-A-Book who have filled orders so very quickly and are always so pleasant on the phone. You are always prompt when returning my phone calls and email’s. Keep up the excellent work!!

Dianne B
Create-A-Book of Portage

To Create A Book:

Yesterday I did a Give A Book Program at our local school. Over 20 Local Businesses purchased 195 books for the Kindergarten and 1st grade. I rented the McGruff Costume and had our educational officer go around the school and give a short talk about the book to each class. This was a big hit with the kids and teachers! Last night upon getting home I had 5 messages on my machine from parents that had seen their child’s book and wanted to order more today. I have received over 30 calls from parents and grandparents wanting books. This was a great help to me. It’s a great program for any school! The newspapers were all there. The school has asked me to do this again every year.

Thanks
Stacy R

Hi John!

Wanted to let you know I participated in my second show this past weekend and it was a HUGE success. We sold 74 books Saturday and 40 on Sunday for a grand total of 114 books! Not only did I run out of books, but also the bags I use for FREE gift wrap as well as order forms! Glad Kinko’s is open on Sunday! I never dreamed of selling that many books in one show! The customers LOVED the books and said they would return next year and hoped CAB would have some new titles. The Train and Fishing books are big hits down here in Texas!

Keep up the good work and Happy Holidays!

Cameron G

We did our first show this weekend. WOW! What a hit we were. Although we barely knew what we were doing, the first day was still good. But the next day was the big day and we kicked butt. Ran out of the most popular titles but took future orders. We had a blast. Everyone just praised the books, thought they where great.

Keep up the good work!

Your new friends over at Answers Computers in Willard MO.

Hello Create-A-Book crew….

I had these magnetic signs made a few months ago and have caused quite a stir. Since I’ve had the signs on I make sure I have catalogs with me all the time. A car that was behind me traffic kept flashing their head lights, I thought something was wrong with my van. The lady wanted a catalog. I’ve had people standing by my van when I come out of the store and post office wanting info on the books. Looks like I have an excellent and inexpensive form of continual advertising.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Mary C

Hi
I have been selling your books on the auctions for quite some time now and everyone just loves them and I get many e-mails praising the books and how OUTSTANDING they are. I just wanted to share with you what one of my customer wrote to me. This person has a feedback of over 300 on eBay and what he said not only affected me for making the book but also you as the company creating such wonderful stories.

From my customer:

I do want to take this opportunity to tell you how impressed I was with the book. I was shocked to see how many times you were able to put his name in the text. The book and the printing is all first rate, and I believe this will be one of the best purchases I made from eBay this year. Thanks again, Bob

I’m sure you have probably heard this before but I just wanted to share this with you, thanks for your time.
Terri

This will be the third year that I have set up for a book show at our local county hospital that employs over 1000 people. Their gift shop, which is run by volunteers, are the one’s that reap the 20% profit. Every year no matter what the circumstances I have managed to do over $1000 in sales with very little effort. I agree it is wonderful because they can offer “payroll deduction” to their employees making it very easy for the employees to shop no matter what time of the month it is.

Shannon K
K &K From Dealers

Dear Mr. Hefty,

We just wanted to let you know about our great news! We have recently landed an account with a very large school book fair company. They will be buying books from us with the first order of 500 to 1000 books. Then reorders possibly up to 2000 at a time. We are very excited about the potential of this new venture.

Thank you for giving us the idea about book fairs, we are also setting up dates with large doctor offices. We are enjoying ourselves, and since we started this in Nov. we are doing quite well and have a lot of ideas for the future.

Sincerely,
L K and B K

Dear Create-A-Book Team:

I just wanted to write a quick note to let you guys know that you have been doing an excellent job. I started my business in July and it is really going well. I am doing mostly home parties and boy are they worthwhile. My average party has had four guests, takes around three hours and I am averaging about $150.00 per party. People love when they see these books made first hand!!!

Right now I am working a full time job and doing my parties on the side, but I am trying a lot of different avenues to be able to quit my current job.

Thank you to everyone at Create-A-Book for all of the support!

CWB

Hi!

A success story. . . Our business is located in Sheboygan, situated right between Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Michigan. Sheboygan has a population of 50,000. Kohler, Wisconsin, famous for Kohler Company sinks and toilets, is located about 3 miles due west of Sheboygan. It is a very small community of about 2200 people. They are a McGruff Community, so we went to meet Officer Larry L. of the Kohler Police Dept. to show him the McGruff books and get his support. He was delighted and suggested we approach the Kohler Kiwanis Club for sponsoring the Give-A-Book program. We had already approached Dr. John Egan, Kohler School Superintendent to apprise him of our ideas and find out how many 3rd graders were in his school.

Last night, we met with the Kohler Kiwanis Club, presented ourselves and the McGruff materials. We also left them with a copy of the 20 major concepts of safety discussed in the book. They apparently really liked what they heard because they called us today to inform us that they will sponsor all 35 books for the 3rd graders!! We’re ecstatic! what a wonderful way to get kids to read and be safe! Our business has only been up and running since Nov. 26, so this is a real feather in our cap. Just thought you might like to know! This is such a wholesome business. We are very proud to be a part of it and proudly announce the Hefty name whenever we can.

Thank you to the staff for all their support. We look forward to visiting this web site often.
C B and C B

As a former elementary school secretary, I still hold dear the staff and students at my former school. So I decided to “treat” them to the McGruff books. I hit the streets and solicited local businesses in our town to offer the books to every student in the school. There are 275 students in attendance.

The local police department brought their McGruff costume and the police officers gave a brief program in conjunction with the books. The children were delighted. I not only made sure that the media was in attendance, I told the teachers that I had one request in doing this project.

I wanted the children to

1. Learn Safety
2. Be proud to read about themselves, thus encouraging an eagerness to read,

I added a third aspect to it. I asked that each child write a personal thank you to the sponsors for their contribution. A request, which I might add, delighted the teachers. When I ran into the business people later, they were all so very pleased with the letters they received!

I have decided to cut back and instead of doing this project on a large scale, I now work on an individual class basis, or a grade level. It is much easier to do so, and I have found that the first time I tried it this way, one business sponsored a whole class! This is very encouraging to me, and I figure with over 35 elementary schools alone, I will be busy for a long time to come.

I also recently assisted another dealer with the holiday rush and craft shows she has been swamped with during her years as a dealer. I found that we were a wonderful compliment to each other. She and I benefited immensely from each other’s ideas. And, though during the year we go it solo, we definitely plan to work side by side during the Christmas season.

Best to you all, and thanks ever so much for all the help when I need you!
R M

Just wanted to drop a line, and let you know that we have been dealers for over almost 2 years now….Last year we set up a display in our local mall for Christmas, we went into it with a partnership with JC Penney, in which we paid them $3.00 for each book we sold, and they provided the space right at the entrance into the mall…the response was overwhelming.

We even had TV coverage, since I had faxed them a press release on This great new company in town, they came out and did a live remote…Now that was exciting..and great FREE coverage.

This year we did the same thing, and we had old customers coming back and made a lot of new ones. Although we could only set up Fri-Sun, due to the fact that all of us have a full time job, we easily sold $1,600 every weekend, and the overflow of that lingered throughout the year, because those books that were used as gifts, well you can imagine the calls we got after Christmas requesting catalogs, and throughout the year.

We have also managed to secure ourselves in numerous Hospitals to promote our Baby Book, we have contracted with over 27 hospitals in 3 states.

It is work, but it does pay off with persistence.

Thanks Again,
E L

Dear Mr. Hefty,

Here’s a tip a friend of mine observed at a Toy home party she hosted last week. Perhaps it could help “C.W.” whose letter appears on your Dealer’s Comments section of your website…The person selling the merchandise had made up a list containing the names of family members and friends, etc., and alongside the list of names she left a space for important dates to remember. When she handed each person attending a copy of that list my friend said that a lot of them filled out the list at that time and bought ahead for future birthdays, etc.; something they had not intended to do when they arrived that morning for the party!

Sincerely,
K H

I am so excited! I have been working on the hospital promotions for several months and I am finally in!!!! The nurse’s station in the pediatrics area is promoting my brochures in their waiting area and I have received orders. Housekeeping saw them and asked for brochures for their department AND I just received a call from the gift shop and they want to do promotions too! It’s taken some work but I wanted to share this exciting news with you. Everyone should just stay persistent because BOY does it surely pay off.

My party plans are going good too. I’ve had 3 so far, and two booked for June, and they’re averaging about $250.00 per show!

My website has gotten orders and I have several school programs in the works for this fall. I also signed up for a few craft shows, joined the local Chamber of Commerce and I might do a trade show with them.

It’s NETWORKING! NETWORKING! NETWORKING!

I am still a fairly new dealer (since January) but for all you brand new dealers out there – this is a fantastic business! I just love it! This is so exciting to be able to do something that I really love and to share it with people that get excited about it too!

Thank YOU Create-A-Book for making this possible!

Debbie
Debbie’s Books

I remembered the preschool my daughter attended years ago holds a graduation ceremony “with caps” for preschoolers moving on to Kindergarten. I asked them if they ever considered a graduation gift for their parents to take home?

Everyone thought it was a great idea! This daycare is not in a rich area, so I discounted the books. The preschool simply asked the parents if they’d like a Graduation Keepsake. The daycare provided me with pictures to be placed on the inside cover. I created a page that read: Small Wonders Daycare Graduating Class of 2001 and listed the names of the 20 students. That extra page plus an empty clear album page at the back was added to the books for signatures.

THE SCHOOL AND PARENTS WERE ECSTATIC!!!

I gave the daycare the books to re-proof. They’re wrapping them and I will have a display at their graduation ceremony at the local high school. The parents and children will pick up their “gift” from me while they are waiting for formal pictures to be taken. That gives me a couple hours to show them the other books available for their child.

Hopefully this will become an annual event. There are daycares and preschools EVERYWHERE! This went great! It didn’t actually cost the center anything! and I should get loads of residual sales from this effort!!

Good luck!
Merlyn C
Personalized Books of Ohio (PBO)

I truly enjoy all the comments from other dealers and the many ways you work to help me make my business better. When people have asked me about my business, I tell them not to even look beyond Hefty and Create-A-Book. There’s no need when I sell more of your books than I do the licensed books. Must be your quality!

Thanks again!

Sue P
A Personalized Book

Dear Create-A-Book,
I also wanted to let you know how pleased I am with my dealership. I have only been in business for 3 months and am already making a profit! I paid back my initial investment, computer and printer costs in only 2 months. The response has been great. It’s a great product and I love to sell!
Sue S
Personalized Books by Sue