I wrote a book, will you carry it?

First off, congratulations! Writing a book takes an incredible amount of work and dedication, congratulations on your achievement. We support as many authors as we can, though we don’t have the room to carry every book we’d like. With so many self-publishing resources available these days we get dozens of emails each week from authors interested in having us carry their books. Those authors living in the immediate area are in the most demand as far as self-published books go and are the most likely to be a good match with our store. It also depends on genre. Some genres just aren’t in as much demand here as they are elsewhere, we have to take this into consideration.

 

If your book has been published through a traditional publisher and we feel we have the appropriate audience for it we will order it through them or one of our regular distributors on standard industry terms. If you’re looking to self publish and get your book onto shelves in brick and mortar stores please consider Ingram Spark rather than Amazon (one note, setting the discount to 55% on Ingram Spark does not pass that discount onto bookstores, Ingram keeps a portion of that and charges stores at the industry standard discount at this percentage. We agree, their wording is misleading). Many bookstores won’t carry books published through Amazon and it’s an unhappy surprise for the authors when they try to market them. If your book is self-published or not available through our regular distributors, or is only available on a non-returnable basis or without the standard terms, we may decide to purchase from you directly. If your book is a good fit for our store we generally start with 1-2 copies, depending on genre, and reorder as they sell. Successful sales of your book in our store will depend largely on your promotion, with you sharing to your friends, family, and community that it’s available here for purchase.

 

Books must be professionally bound with the title printed on the spine (people won’t notice your book if they can’t see the title when it’s on the shelf), and we go with the standard 60/40 split as far as payment goes–you, the author, will get 60% of the retail price if you provide your book directly to us. Pricing must be consistent within the genre–look at published books in your genre, your book should be priced similarly. At this time we don’t do consignment. If you choose to leave or mail a copy of your book without consulting the buyer first it will be considered a free review copy.

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Book info to send: Info should be sent by email, please include your locale in the subject line. We are unable to accommodate walk-in visits without an appointment or telephone inquiries as when our doors are open we’re focused on helping customers, pricing and shelving inventory, and other day to day activities which keep the doors open. When emailing us information about your book please include 1: your name and if you’re local, 2: the book title, 3: publication date, 4: the ISBN, 5: a link to a website with info about your book (not Amazon or their affiliates, please), 6: what your local target audience will be here in Covington, 7: why you think your book is a good match for our store in particular, and 8: how you plan to promote your book here at Ox Lot Books and in Covington. Send the info to emily@oxlotbooks.com. Please note that since we receive so many requests we can’t personally reply to all inquiries, but we will take a look at the info you send to see if it’s a good fit for our store. 

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Do you have any tips for making my book successful in a bookstore?

To end up with the best product you can, a book to be proud of and one people want to read, we have some very basic tips:

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1. We strongly encourage all authors to have their book professionally edited. A potential reader flipping through your book will likely walk away if there are obvious spelling errors (particularly on the cover).

2. Think about hiring a professional graphic designer to do your cover and layout–given a choice the public is much more likely to pick up a book that looks good. Formatting errors disrupt the flow of a story (for fiction) or can cause real confusion about events (for nonfiction). As mentioned above, the book title and preferably your name should be printed on the spine.

3. Buy an ISBN and have a barcode printed on the back cover. It’s difficult to restock your book if we can’t easily track it in our system.

4. Go with an affordable publishing company so you can price your book reasonably within its genre. Look at other published books in the same genre, trim, and bulk to get an idea of common pricing and price your book accordingly. You don’t necessarily need to print the price on the cover but be consistent; your book should sell for the same price through every outlet.

5. Send people to us to buy your book! Send friends and family to us, and list us on your website as an outlet for your book with a link to our store’s website. Whenever you do publicity for your book list us as an outlet. People need to know we carry your book. We can’t buy copies from you unless people want to buy them from us. If you’re sending people to online retailers rather than brick and mortar bookstores we will not be able to carry your book.

6. How are you going to promote your book? Having your book published is a big, exciting step, but it’s only the first step in getting your book into the hands of readers. You need to market your book; how are planning to do that?

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Information for artists and makers:

We have so many incredible artists and makers in our area! If you have created something you would like to submit for placement in our inventory please email us the info about your work, including your locale in the subject line. We are unable to accommodate walk-in visits without an appointment or telephone inquiries as when our doors are open we’re focused on helping customers, pricing and shelving inventory, going through publisher catalogs, and other day to day activities which keep the doors open. When emailing us information about your work please include 1: your name, company name if you have one, and if you’re local, 2: what kind of work you create, 3: a link to a website or online catalog with info about your work (not Amazon, please) or photos of your work, 6: how you plan to promote your work here at Ox Lot Books, 7: why you think our shop is a good match for your work, 8: pricing information (both retail and wholesale). Send the info to emily@oxlotbooks.com. Please note that since we receive so many requests we can’t personally reply to all inquiries, but we will take a look at the info you send to see if it’s a good fit for our store.