Local authors – Sorry, but we are not accepting local author books at this time.  Please check back to see when we’ve resumed this program

Congratulations on completing your book! The Read Queen Bookstore is a small shop, but we are happy to support new writers through our consignment program. In fact, we have designated shelf space for highlighting local authors.

We support as many authors as we can.  That said, we simply don’t have 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 more likely to be a good fit here.  It also depends on genre.  Some genres simply 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 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 we decide your book is a good fit for our store we generally start with 1-2 copies, depending on genre, and reorder as they sell. We pay no more than 50% of retail.

Books must be 

  • Professionally bound 

  • Title printed on the spine

  • Must have a Title, an Author, a publication date, 

  • Must have an ISBN 

  • Must have a website with info about your book (not Amazon or Barnes & Noble) 

***Books dropped off or mailed without a contract will be considered free review copies for the bookstore to either sell or give away with no compensation due to the author***

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:

  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 are buying them from us.  If you’re sending people to online retailers 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 you planning to do that?

  7. Here is a link to a wonderful article called “How to Talk to a Bookseller: A 10-Step Guide for Authors” written by Melissa Lion who was a bookseller and the events coordinator at DIESEL, a bookstore in Oakland, California before leaving to write full time.  http://www.bookweb.org/news/how-talk-bookseller-10-step-guide-authors

  8. Tor published a great article by Lish McBride about what you, as an author, can do to make your events more successful.  http://www.tor.com/2017/01/30/the-authors-guide-to-no-show-events/?utm_source=exacttarget&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_term=tordotcom-tordotcomnewsletter&utm_content=na-readblog-blogpost&utm_campaign=9780805098631

  9. Jane Friedman has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in business strategy for authors and publishers, her blog is a wonderful resource! https://www.janefriedman.com/blog/?fbclid=IwAR1HeXLT3hOPF7nuF2jD2AxRjn-yjtYqkpfVa04iy4vNI_huNPAxdgWh-i4

Can I have a signing at your store?

If you’ve been in our store you’ll understand we’re pretty small and currently don’t have much space to hold in-store signings. While we work on a solution to this problem, here is a great article on planning a successful event while you look at other venues: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/pw-select/article/69770-the-indie-authors-guide-to-organizing-author-events.html

***Books dropped off or mailed without a contract will be considered free review copies for the bookstore to either sell or give away with no compensation due to the author***

Local Author Submission Form – PLEASE COMPLETE THIS FORM TO BE CONSIDERED