Yesterday I came across www.yellowbook.com and it seems they hire independent contractors to deliver their phone books with them as long as you have a car, driver's license, and obviously car insurance and over 18 years of age. Since I'm a teacher, I'm off during the summer and always looking for extra work to keep me busy so I went on their website and signed up. It was a very easy process. I received an automated e-mail reply one day later (today) giving me a phone number to call and schedule an interview. I called that number and was referred to ANOTHER number. I finally reached someone who covers my state (NJ) and they mentioned 3 locations and asked if I was near any of them, which I wasn't. So I asked if I can call back in June to see if anything becomes available closer to me and the friendly person on the other end said "sure". Has anyone else experienced working for yellow book? I'm sure the pay isn't too good, but probably pays better than Certified or Market Force do. LOL. Seriously though, if anyone has had experience with them please post and let me know if you actually had to go in for a former interview or did you just call their phone number and they gave you an assignment?

My sister did that one summer when she was unemployed. The pay was very low and the smell of books and plastic in a hot car even with the windows open was pretty bad. They were supposed to be ready 2 weeks before our visit but they called her the night we arrived that she MUST DO THE DELIVERIES in the next 3 days. We all chipped in to help and got it all done the next day so we would have time free to visit. This has been decades ago, but I think about it every time I see the old beat up cars in traffic so loaded down with phone books their muffler is dragging on every bump.

No thanks.

When I did it the pay was pennies per book and each one had to land on a porch, lots of walking for a penny.

Here most houses have a mailbox at the street and they are dumped, in individual plastic bags, under the mailboxes.

In that case, Hell No! I won't be doing it now. Thanks for the info.

Want to deliver 88 books to my building and a similar number to every building on my street, which is about 5 miles long?

That would be a fairly easy hand truck delivery to each one rather than dropping one by every mailbox down the road or walking them up to front porches . . .

I did phone books once, here in Michigan they make you do it in December, I had a route of over 500 homes and businesses and the route pay was about 100.00 I spent more in gas than what I got paid, the worst part was having to go back and forth to the warehouse to get more books as they don't all fit in one car trip. Then you have to bag them as well, I will never do that again.

I had a friend that did it recently. Honestly, he got paid to have enough fire-starter for the next 5 years. Cant tell you if he deemd filling his garage from floor to ceiling with yellowbooks, but he got paid....

I did this for three summers in a row..Each route paid based on how many stops there were. Couldn't drop on a mailbox, had to be front porch. What I did, we had a huge 12 passenger van, took the seats out, loaded it up with books..Had a couple of my friend's kids that wanted to earn some extra summer money, and we'd start at 5:30 am (Most do it in the middle of the day..yuck!). My part of Michigan, it was June where it is HOT by noon.

We'd drop the two boys on one block with a wagon, and they'd have a 6 block radius. Since the wagon couldn't hold much, their sister and I stopped at the stop sign at each block and left a pile of new books for them. Then we'd go to another block or an apartment building and delivered a ton. If we did a street, I'd drive down it slowly, she'd carry a few books and go down the one side of the street, then we'd do the other.

The huge apartment buildings made it more interesting. We did do one site, it took us 3 hours, but that was 500 books! We let the boys do the easy one that time, they delivered to the area businesses.

Phone book delivery is no easy task, its HARD work!! We did a route a day, and got the books ready the night before..Ended up earning close to $1,000/week but then we spent about $200/week on gasoline, and we split the rest. Yellow Book loved us, we were the best team in the Kalamazoo area just because of how we did it compared to everyone else.

After delivery of yellow books at my house, a day later the phone rings. It's an automated system evaluating delivery. Evidently that's cheaper than hiring ICs to do phone shops.

For real? Here, they had a couple gals sitting in the corner making the calls to random ppl to confirm delivery of it! They always used the temp agency since it only lasted a couple weeks

I do phone books as my only source of income and I personal like doing it for various reasons
1 I'm my own boss
2 I go where I want to go when I want to
3 No irritating supervisors/boss or obnoxious co-workers to deal with
4 I decide when to start stop and take lunch

Yes when I first started I had my issues because I wasn't used to doing the job in an efficient manner plus I had another job on top of that which meant I only had a limited amount of time to do so, but most important of all I had a small car which meant I could fit so many books in my vehicle instead of the entire route which meant I had to go back for more books which was time consuming and gas wasting

Basically the lesson I learned is to successfully deliver phone books and make decent money is to use a bigger/reliable vehicle that you can fit 700 to 1100 books inside. That reduces the amount of trips to pick up books meaning you can do the route pretty much without interruption. The second thing you need is time. The more free time you have the more time you have to finish the route. Third know the area you're delivering in and understand the map. That will allow you plan your strategy and finish your route at an efficient pace. Fourth, use equipment that allows you to deliver more books at one time like a push buggy or wagon. That will eliminate more driving and saves gas. Last but most important, you need energy, motivation, and experience. If you have that, you can accomplish any route efficiently and in a good amount of time

I deliver on average 6 to 800 books a day in 8 to ten hours making about 125 to 200 dollars a day It can be done

I did this many many years ago when people actually needed phone books. In my area it is done in the winter. I remember delivering books in the snow. I used a wagon to tow books around the neighborhood. I don't even remember the pay rate. I never did it again though.
Another thing I did was deliver the once a week ad-circulars. That paid much better and was easier. These are the newspaper ads and coupons that are delivered on Sunday/Monday to people who do not subscribe to the newspaper.
I had a small route that paid $70 (18 years ago) for one day of deliveries that could be done at anytime as long as they were delivered by Monday. You picked up the papers on Saturday.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane. I had almost erased phone book delivery from my past odd job experience memory! :-)

Yep, I did it too when I was in college. I still remember the back end of my old Dodge Dart dragging with the weight of all the phonebooks in the trunk, back seat and everywhere. I ended up getting help from friends to finish up and never did it again.

My mother did this years ago....i beleive the books come in February in my area...so doing it in the summer is not an option...

My brother did it in NJ back in the mid 80's. He was a college student on summer break. He never complained, but never did it again.

I did that as a kid in the 80s. My parents used to get us (my 2 brother and I) to do the leg work! Have no idea how much they got paid. But we did as many routes as we could whenever the work came available.

One night I was speaking with a friend of mine, and some how this topic came up. It turns out around the same time I was doing the Deliveries in BC ( I Lived in Vancouver back then) he was delivering in PEI (Summerside.) We joked that we had all of Canada covered, since the two Provinces are clear on the other side of the country from one another. LOL.

Lady Marius
Canadian Mystery Shopper

People still use phone books?