Stocking Small Presses

It’s really hard for small presses or self published books to get into any bookshop. With so much stuff being published at the moment, it’s a real minefield for bookshops. This must be frustrating for the publishers and the authors too.

We get many emails and visits from authors asking us if we'd like to stock their books. Sometimes these visits work. Like when Jason from Guerilla Books came in with author Andrew Lambie and persuaded me to read Carnival of the Flesh. I did, I adored it and now we stock it and have sold around 30-40 copies at £20 each. 

This is amazing. Buy it.

But this is a rarity. We can't read every book that's shown to us.

But, we want to support small presses and self published authors, so we’re going to try and give you an opportunity to have your books, face out at the front of our bookshop. But you’re going to really have to believe that your books will sell...

Here is the usual journey of a new book to our bookshop;

• ·         We like the look/sound of a book
• ·         We order it from the publishers
• ·         It arrives with an invoice, which we have to pay in 30 days.
• ·         We get the books at a discounted price, so for example we will buy a £7.99 paperback for about a fiver
• ·         The book sells and we make about £3
• ·         We reorder it

The best chance we have of selling a book is by displaying it at the front of the store, on a table, or by writing a review or by telling our customers that it is a brilliant book.

This is how we propose to give small presses the opportunity to get their books on the shelves.

• ·         You get in touch with us and tell us a maximum of 3 titles you want us to stock (they MUST be fiction)
• ·         Once we agree, you pay us £1.50 per book per month (between 3 and 6 copies per title) to display in the shop.
• ·         We will then put your books in our dedicated “Small Presses” bookcase at the front of the shop.
• ·         The book sells for £7.99 (for example).
• ·         We give you £7.99
• ·         YES. WE GIVE YOU THE FULL SALE PRICE.

So, essentially, you will be paying as little as £4.50 per month to have your book displayed in the shop. That’s a very small price to pay, but the potential rewards are very good. You will have the opportunity to write a review of the book, which we will stick on the shelf by the book. You can also tell all your friends that the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green stocks your book, so they can come and buy it. If you sell all the books within a month, you can put some more there for a quid each.

So, if you really think your book is good enough to sell, get in touch and persuade us to put it in the “Small Presses” bookcase. Obviously, if it sells loads, we’ll stock it permanently.

The bookcase will be launched at the beginning of October, so if you want to there at the very beginning, now’s your chance.