Stocking your book at Time Out

NB: We do not do any independent buying in our busy season over the holidays, from Oct-Feb. Queries sent during this period may not be responded to.

First of all, congratulations on publishing a book! And thank you for thinking of Time Out as a potential stockist. 

Our buyers work very hard to curate the selection of books on our shelves, based on their knowledge of our customers' reading taste. We see thousands of new books every year - from major publishers to indies to self published work - and select only a small percentage to sell in store. Many of these books are ordered in very small quantities, and are displayed spine-out on our shelves.

With this in mind, self-published books must be really exceptional to succeed in an independent bookstore. We are far more likely to look at and accept books when you include all the necessary information in your email to us. 

FIRST, we recommend carefully reading this Bookstore Guide for Indie Authors from Booksellers NZ & the NZ Society of Authors.

Here’s what we need from you:

• The ISBN-13 with no dashes (You can get an ISBN here)

• Once you have an ISBN, you can list your book on Nielsen Bookdata. You must do this in order to get your book into any bookshop, as this is the database we all use to find titles. You can register for Nielsen here. (it’s free!)

• A blurb about your book (and yourself!)

• Distribution: How will you supply your books to us? Do you have a NZ distributor? Or will you send copies yourself? 

• Price: Please include the wholesale price, the RRP, and any postage costs if you will be sending the books yourself.

• Do you have any marketing or publicity upcoming for this book?

If you think your book might be a good fit for us, please fill out our Stocking Inquiry Form.

We'll be in touch if we think your book will work. Please do not send unsolicited books to the store.

Other tips:

• Make sure your book has the title printed on the spine, and the barcode printed on the back. This makes it much easier for booksellers to find/scan your books! 

• Most bookshops take smaller quantities of books on a Sale or Return/Consignment basis. 

• We typically won’t be taking on books from October onwards as we get full to the brim with Christmas stock.

Not sure where to start?

• We strongly recommend taking advantage of New Zealand Society of Authors resources for writing and publishing books in NZ. Their website can answer almost any question you may have about the publishing process. 

• An NTI (New Title Information Sheet) consolidates all the required information above into a one page sheet about your book. Enjoy has more details on this and a great example on their blog. 

• The books Everything I Know About Books: An Insider’s Look Into Publishing In Aotearoa and the Bateman New Zealand Writer’s Handbook are great resources as well!

Launching your book at Time Out

If you'd like to hold your book launch at Time Out, take a look at our upstairs space then contact Jenna at books@timeout.co.nz