Children's Book Author Looking for A Book Tour Skoolie!

[SSBernardo]

Hello - my name is Susan Bernardo - I have just written a children's book called The Big Adventures of Tiny House, which will be released in Spring 2017. (yay, Kickstarter - we just successfully crowdfunded the project!).

Next summer, the illustrator Courtenay Fletcher and I want to take our kids on the road for a tiny house book tour and visit some tiny home festivals, county fairs, etc and read our books aloud to families.

One of the characters in the book is a purple Skoolie named Buster - so right now we are dreaming about finding a cool Skoolie of our own to rent or buy (if we can get a sponsor!) to use for our big adventure. I thought I'd become a member of skoolie.net so I can start looking for possibilities! Ideas are welcome.

 

[1olfart]

Best of luck in your endeavor.

I have come across a couple of retired bookmobiles, via C / L, in the last year or so. They are around, and might be a perfect fit for you to "Skoolize"

I'll look for you in future Newberry Awards

 

[SSBernardo]

Thanks!

Bookmobiles are very cool!

We would like to re-create the character in the book, which is more of a traditional school bus - he's a very musical purple bus named Buster. Plus there'd be 5 of us traveling, so we would need something fairly sizeable...a medium-sized school bus would be perfect!

 

[AlleyCat67]

The best place to look for a bus is on the auction sites... Public Surplus and GovDeals are two that a lot of people here have bought from. If you can find one close to you that you can actually go inspect before buying that's all to your benefit.

If there is a bus dealer fairly close to you that's another option... you'll pay a little bit more but if something doesn't set right with you about one you can just walk away.

If you're wanting the more traditional school bus look then you'll probably want a conventional bus... an IC with DT466 and Allison MT643 would be a good choice if you're wanting to run lots of miles (and with a book tour that's exactly what you'd be doing). Try to find one that was a team/activity bus as they are usually already geared and equipped for highway travel.

 

[Tango-SKO]

Personally, I believe that buying direct from a school district offers a lot of advantages. First...you will pay what the auction house or reseller would have paid. Next, you can most often talk to the techs who maintained and know the units intimately. And third, if you are lucky, you can get your hands on a unit's maintenance logs which are a huge asset in determining condition and quirks.

 

[AlleyCat67]

Public Surplus and GovDeals buses ARE listed by the school districts... all those sites do is bring buyers and district sellers together, and the sales are in eBay auction format.

I personally found it was rather harder to find buses for sale by local districts, and I flat out did not have the time to search for contact info for every district within an hour of me, though if you do have the luxury of time then that's the way to get the best deal.

 

[Carytowncat]

How fun! Welcome. We look forward to seeing your adventures.

 

[cadillackid]

A tale of my 2 busses..

one is a dealer bus
one is an auction bus..

I didnt know much.. the dealer allowed me to crawl into, under over, around, drive and learn... try out the various drivetrains that are spoken about... listen to the engies, see the busses, and tires, and whether you can turn a corner in a single lane..

I bought a bus from said dealer.. I wanted a classic.. they had it.. its been a good bus.. by no means perfect, as its old.. ive driven it 9000 miles in 5 months, have had a ball in it..

Bus #2.. an auction bus.. an auction directly held by a school district, a forum member scoped out the busses at the site and said in general they looked solid.. I bid Low... wasnt really planning on another bus.. wanted to learn how the auctions worked.. thus the low bid.. my Low bid ended up being high and I won... that bus cost me less than 1/3 of the dealer bus.. is it better than my dealer bus? hard to compare a classic vs a newer bus.. but IO havent found anything major wrong with it in the 2000 miles Ive driven it... the body is for sure in better shape.. and its faster on the highway..

my point with all this? the dealers have their place.. and so do the auctions.. I was fortiunate to have a forum member look at the auction busses in person... and also fortunate to have learned before hand about busses..

take your time.. learn about busses and what you truly need / want before jumping on the first thing that comes into view..

oh and a Purple Bus sounds fabulous!!!!!!
-Christopher