DANVERS — Lawrence and Burlington have Got Books and come Friday, Danvers, will too.
That's when the hybrid used book seller and professional fundraiser opens its second Used Book Superstore — in a 13,000-square-foot-space in Endicott Plaza, 139 Endicott St. The store will be adjacent to an Ocean State Job Lot and a Savers thrift store.
The 70-employee, rapidly expanding Got Books is not your run of the mill used-book seller.
While it takes in donated books, CDs and DVDs, it is a for-profit company with a mission of finding new homes for used books.
It uses some of its proceeds to support a variety of nonprofits. It also has a mission of keeping tons of books out of the waste stream, saving municipalities money on trash tipping fees.
Got Books gets books from nearly 300 collection boxes at area churches and schools, or it picks them up for free. From its collection boxes, it pays charities, schools and organizations by the pound.
When the books come into its warehouse in Lawrence, a worker uses a handheld device to scan and sort the books. Only about 10 percent are good enough to sell online.
"That's what we need to pay the bills," said president and founder Bob Ticehurst, 30. The Arlington native and ex-Marine firefighter first started selling books on the side eight years ago as an accountant at a Boston investment management firm.
The books Got Books can't sell online go to its stores or to its charity book sale in Lawrence, which sells books for a buck Thursday through Saturday. Half the profits from the charity sale go to certain nonprofits. It also operates a program to donate books to troops and teachers.
At the Danvers store, books will be a bargain, selling for $1.99 for paperbacks, $2.99 for hardcovers and $3.99 for coffee table books.
"The goal is not to overprice things," Ticehurst said. "We want to get them (the books) back into the community."
The store will have bright, wide aisles, plush chairs, coffee tables (no coffee) and a selection broken down into 100 categories, Ticehurst said. Books will be rotated constantly.
Its shelves will be packed with 102,000 books for adults and 30,000 for kids, and it will employ 13 people.
The new store also highlights Got Books' growth. It opened its first Used Book Superstore in Burlington in August.
Over the years, the company has occupied various locations, too, including Ticehurst's parents' basement, an apartment in Arlington and Ticehurst's first home in Billerica, where the company's first standalone warehouse was also located. The company later moved to more space in North Reading, where both the operation and charity book sale were located.
In June, Got Books moved from a 38,400-square-foot space in North Reading to a 57,000-square-foot one on Glenn Street in Lawrence, where the books come in by the truckload.
There are books it can't sell, and about 20 percent of donations wind up getting recycled. For its efforts, in 2007, the company won the Massachusetts Recycling Business Green Binnie Award from the Massachusetts Recycling Coalition.
Pam Irwin, Danvers' recycling coordinator, said she first enticed Ticehurst to attend the town's recycling event at Town Hall several years ago.
Back then, Ticehurst was still selling books out of his parents' basement.
"It was so successful he decided to use this as part of his business plan and expand to other cities and towns," Irwin said of the book collections. "He's a got a fabulous reputation in the recycling community," she added.
Not everyone gets Got Books as a bookstore, though.
"That's like saying Building 19 is a bookstore," said Mark Stoll of the used book store Manchester by the Book at 27 Union St. in Manchester, which also sells books online.
Stoll said the idea of Got Books is a clever one. However, it can hardly be considered alongside used books stores that offer unique or rare books.
"I don't think they add anything to the used book trade," Stoll said.
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