Media consignment for Friends of the Library groups
Most Friends groups take in more than their shelves can hold, and the items worth the most are usually the ones nobody local is looking for. Books, DVDs, CDs, audiobooks, video games, even cassettes. We find those, sell them to buyers across the country, and send half the profit back to your organization.
Trusted across Florida
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Groups differ enormously in how much time their volunteers have. Rather than ask you to fit our process, we'll fit whichever of these suits your situation.
Ask which one fits Not sure? Tell us your situation and we'll say plainly what we'd recommend.
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Four steps, and your group is only involved in the first one.
A volunteer scans donations, books or media, and sets aside whatever the app flags as worth listing. If you have opted for bulk collection instead, skip this step. We do the sorting at our end.
Around Central Florida we drive out and collect, on whatever schedule suits you: weekly, monthly, or a phone call when the bin is full. Further afield, we send prepaid labels and the packaging, and cover the freight.
Everything after collection sits with us: photographing, listing, pricing, storage, packing, postage, buyer questions, returns. Your group never deals with a customer.
Once funds clear we send your share, by cheque or electronically, whichever your treasurer prefers. If your board wants the detail behind it, ask and we'll send a full item-by-item report.
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What that half funds is your decision. Programming, materials, scholarships, whatever the library needs most.
Nothing is invoiced to your group at any point. We only make money when your group makes money, so the harder a book works for you, the better it works for us.
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A bookstore can only sell to whoever walks in. Technical manuals, academic references, specialist hobby titles, box sets and fine bindings sit for months and usually end up at a thrift shop. Online they find the one person in the country who wants them. These are real sales from partner shelves.
| Title | Why it sat | Sold for | Library's share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foeldi's Textbook of Lymphology | Specialist medical | $403.02 | $163.95 |
| Prime Movers: Ilmor and Its Engines | Motorsport engineering | $261.00 | $105.74 |
| Walton Ford: Pancha Tantra | Art monograph | $210.83 | $79.21 |
| The Feynman Lectures on Physics (3 vols) | Physics reference | $200.00 | $73.86 |
| Etymological Dictionary of Greek (2 vols) | Academic linguistics | $173.35 | $64.48 |
| The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning | Niche craft | $149.94 | $57.81 |
| Alice in Wonderland, Easton Press | Fine binding | $134.10 | $51.60 |
| Martin Guitars: A Technical Reference | Instrument reference | $129.99 | $48.67 |
Our software gives a deliberately conservative estimate when a volunteer scans a book. In practice, titles like these frequently sell for well above it. A scarce reference or a fine binding is worth whatever the right buyer will pay in the week they finally find it, and that is often more than any model predicts. Not every book is a $400 book. But almost none of these would have found a buyer on a Friends bookstore shelf at any price.
What started as Max scanning in our backroom has grown into a system that gives our library twice the revenue we had before. It's simple, reliable, and makes a huge difference.
In the past, media that was difficult to sell was sent to a thrift shop, but thanks to our partnership with MaxX Multi Media, we can sell these unusual books, and often at a surprisingly good price. Some books we'd never be able to sell have generated eye-popping revenue.
Sometimes we receive valuable book donations, resource and textbooks for example, that are better suited for online marketplaces… We are excited to partner up with Max in his mission to find new homes for and save books from the recycling shredders. And 50% of the profit returns to the Friends and our library!
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These come up at nearly every meeting. Ask us anything not covered here.
That is your call, and you do not need our permission either way. When a volunteer scans a book, the software shows what we expect it would net your group. If you think it would do better on your own shelf, or through another channel, keep it. We never need to know. Most of what does come to us are titles that would have been discarded by the usual routes, so the choice is generally between some money and none.
Other media too. We handle books, DVDs, CDs, audiobooks on CD, cassette tapes and video games. The same rule applies to all of it: if the app says a title is worth more to a national buyer than to your shelf, set it aside. Media often does well online precisely because local shelf space for it has shrunk.
Rarely, and the two usually work well side by side. We sell on Amazon, which draws a different set of buyers than eBay does. The same book can be worth quite different amounts on each. Several of our partners run an eBay store and use us for the titles that suit Amazon better. Max got into this by building and running the eBay store for the East Lake Community Library, so we're the last people to talk anyone out of one.
Nothing, and nothing later either. Scanner, app, training, boxes, collection, postage, listing and buyer support are all ours. We only make money when your group makes money. There is no arrangement where we get paid and you do not.
As much or as little as you want to give it. We have no interest in changing how your book sale runs. If a volunteer has an hour, they scan for an hour and stop. Nothing has to be scanned, and there's no quota or minimum on our end. If you'd rather not scan at all, ask about bulk collection instead.
Yes, just ask. We can provide a complete tabular report of every item, what it sold for, and what it returned to your group, at whatever interval suits your board. We don't send one automatically unless you'd like us to.
Yes, gladly. Max presents to Friends boards and library staff regularly, including at the Florida Library Association conference. Invite us to a meeting and we'll come, present, take questions, and leave a summary for your minutes.
Both. Most partners are Friends organizations, but we work with library systems handling their own discards too. The terms don't change.
Yes. We send prepaid labels and packaging, and cover the freight. Same app, same split, same reporting.
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Max has been in the book trade since he was a teenager, and started MaxX Multi Media after building and running the eBay store for the East Lake Community Library. Doing that work as a volunteer made two things obvious: how much value was quietly leaving in the donation pile, and how much effort it takes one person to capture any of it. The consignment program came out of trying to solve the second problem without giving up the first.
MaxX Multi Media now works out of a facility in New Port Richey, and that beginning still shapes how we operate. We have sat on the volunteer side of this, and we build around what a Friends group can realistically sustain.
We now work with 20+ library and Friends group partners, most of them in Florida, and we sponsored the 2026 Florida Library Association Annual Conference. Max presents the program to boards and library staff across the state.
We're a serious bookselling operation as well as a local one, and that matters only because it's what lets us absorb the listing, storage and fulfillment work that would otherwise land on your volunteers.
We are a small team working out of that facility, which means pickups, listings and payouts do not depend on any one person being available.
Talk to Max
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Tell us about your group and we'll come back within a business day. If we're not the right answer for you, we'll say so.
Ask and we will send figures from a comparable partner, put you in touch with a group already running the program, or come and present to your board. We do not publish partner results, but we are glad to share them with a group that is seriously considering this.
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This page is the summary. Each of these goes further.