Lifeline's littlest book fair punches well above its weight, despite being only a 10th of the size of its autumn and spring sales held at EPIC, organisers say.
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Lifeline Canberra's marketing manager Matt Heffernan, who was also responsible for raising the cash to keep the service going, said one of the biggest challenges was to price books in such a way the generosity of donors was respected while ensuring buyers were still offered value for money.
''Canberra people have shown they are willing to donate books that are often quite valuable and rare,'' he said. ''We respect that by making sure they are appropriately priced. Rarities and collectables are individually checked against what they are selling for online. We don't want to be selling a $100 book for $20.''
Theodore residents Jodie and Paul Crichton, who were visiting the book fair for the first time, said whatever Lifeline was doing, it was working. They were impressed.
''It's been very good. There is a lot to choose from,'' Ms Crichton said. ''We bought a craft calendar for Connor and Charli. It's got craft activities for every day of the year.''
She scored a copy of Dead Reckoning, a late entry in Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mysteries series. ''We've lived in Canberra for nine years but, because Paul works weekends, it has been hard to get along before this.''
Lifeline Canberra chief executive Mike Zissler said, while the numbers for previous winter book fairs at Wanniassa had been strong, this was one of the best yet.
''We had 780 people on Friday and 1600 on Saturday,'' he said. Another 200 had arrived at Vikings Auditorium by 11.30am on Sunday.
The sales are just the tip of the iceberg. Bubbling under the surface are the efforts of hundreds of volunteers. More than 100 worked for days to collate the books at Lifeline's Mitchell storage centre and many more worked on Friday, Saturday and Sunday to ensure the operation ran to perfection.