How to get your self-published book stocked at Jarrold
Norfolk is a county with a proud literary heritage and as a UNESCO City of Literature, Norwich attracts crowds of book-ish folk: it’s one of the reasons why we love being part of the literary community here.
We know that both city and county are home to many incredibly talented authors across all genres and are proud to stock books by many established names. But we also appreciate that many of you are unrepresented by an agent or a commercial publisher and have opted to go down the route of self-publishing in its various guises and that this means working directly with bookshops, without a distributor.
We support you and consider it of fundamental importance to the local creative economy to acknowledge and represent as many local authors and illustrators as we can afford and as we see fit for our range and customer base. Our Local Interest section is full to the brim with books supplied to us by individuals or by small outfits who publish just a few titles each year. You will also find fiction, history, cookery, poetry, children’s books and more that we have chosen to stock via a direct route.
In return, we ask you to be mindful that we do not have infinite space or resources and since we are contacted every day with offerings of new self-published books, this means we have to make some difficult choices – we simply can’t take everything.
We suggest you think carefully before approaching us about your work as to whether it will actually be suitable (please see the pointers below) and if you do decide to contact us, please respectfully follow the guidelines below. We can’t promise to get back to you straight away but our book buyer, Rebekka, will review submissions and be in touch as soon as she can.
How to submit
- Please email us details of the book (see below for a summary of the information to include). This gives us a chance to think about your proposal and, if necessary, discuss it with colleagues.
- Please don’t visit unannounced to show us a copy of the book. It’s very disruptive to take unscheduled appointments and it distracts our books team from serving other customers. It helps to email ahead so that, if a meeting is appropriate, we can arrange an appointment around the departmental diary.
- Please don’t contact us during the two busiest months of the year, November and December, as we’re definitely not looking to add titles to the range then. At those times we stop seeing publishers and concentrate entirely on selling books to customers in the pre-Christmas rush.
Is your book suitable?
- Of primary interest to us are books with a local setting, or a link to the area, whatever the genre.
- We can support you by stocking a book but it is unlikely to sell on its own – we need to know what publicity and marketing you have planned to promote the book and to let your friends, family and the wider reading public know it is here
- If an author is local but the book has no regional connection it is less likely it will work for us and publicity and marketing plans become even more critical – we hold stock of around 30,000 titles so need to know what would make yours stand out.
- The format, cover design and price of your book need to be competitive and reflect the books you would consider its direct competitors; it is useful to research these things to get them right
- Supply: we take all books on a sale or return basis and must agree quantity and discount terms before we can take actual stock – it takes time for us to set up a record for every new title
- If we do take your book we are unable to give regular sales updates but are happy for you to check in once every 4-6 weeks via email for an update. If your book is selling fast, you will hear from us!
- It is a lot easier for us to take small quantities of a book if we can do so through Gardners – a wholesaler we use on a daily basis. Please consider registering your book with them, which will also make it available to any independent bookshop in the country, please register here.