Novel way to foster love of books

Creating a community of readers and breathing new life into read books is driving Alea and Andrew Cadzow, whose business The Book Bucket is thriving on the Redcliffe Peninsula.

It opened in September and is the couple’s third outlet, which sells and trades secondhand books.

The other stores are at Bribie Island and Caloundra.

Alea says the outlets operate independently, reflecting their own communities.

“The stock, genres, staff and trade rules are all 100 per cent locally grown by the demand and supply,” she says.

“That’s how the Redcliffe store came about. We had so many people from the Peninsula travelling to other stores to do bulk trading.”

How it works

Customers can simply pop in a buy a book, which they can keep forever or give to someone, or they can trade-in their old books for a store credit.

Those trading books receive ‘all but half its shelf value’. For example, if they buy a book for $6, read it and trade it back, they will receive $2. The difference pays wages and covers the business’ running costs.

“The idea is to make it work for you and your own reading,” she says.

Some people regularly buy and trade books, others come into the store after they have had a clean-up at home.

“Some people living in the area want options for their books, so they can guarantee another reader,” Alea says.

Credits from these bulk trades can be used by the individual or they can turn them into a gift voucher for someone else. They can also ‘pay it forward’ to another customer, even specifying the type of reader they would like to benefit from the gift.

Bringing readers together

All of this activity helps build a community of readers.

There are about 20,000 books at the Redcliffe store covering more than 30 genres but the couple hopes to build capacity to 30,000 books in future.

Interestingly, the biggest traders are young readers and young adults, and when they come in, they are drawn to a wide variety of genres and titles.

Alea says e-books account for a tiny portion of the market and there has been a resurgence in hard copy books which she expects to continue.

The Book Bucket is at 2 Anzac Ave, Redcliffe, and open seven days a week (except Christmas Day) from 8.30am-4.30pm.

There are double trading credits on offer for all new releases until the end of 2021.

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