If you are a publisher, publicist, or agent, please send us your latest catalog and/or contact one of our buyers via email.
If you are the author or editor of a local (Spokane area) chapbook or zine and would like Auntie's to carry your work, please email Kerry Mayer to discuss.
If you are the author of a book-- congratulations! Seriously, that is a huge accomplishment.
Are you looking for someone to formally review, edit, or market your book?
STOP! Sorry, you're in the wrong place.
There are professionals who get paid a lot of money to perform those jobs and a bookstore is not usually the best place to find them.
But, if you are interested in having Auntie's carry your book, feel free to continue reading!
Please understand that our staff evaluates tens of thousands of new books every year and unfortunately we are not able to accommodate every book and author that we might like. Our buyers receive many stocking requests from both independently and traditionally published authors and we do not always have time to respond to phone calls or drop-in visits. In addition, any unsolicited books or manuscripts dropped off or mailed to the store will be considered donations and will become the property of Auntie's Bookstore.
Is your book available from Ingram?
Ingram Book Company is the largest wholesale distributor of books in the United States. Whether or not your book is distributed by one of our regular publishers, if it is currently available from Ingram at standard terms (40% discount or better, returnable) it is easy for us to order. Even if we choose not to stock your book, we can special order it at a customer's request.
If your book is currently available with non-standard terms from Ingram, we can usually still order it for a customer but we will not be able to stock it in our store. In addition, depending on the terms, a customer might end up paying slightly more than the listed price and the book may not be returnable.
Is your book only available from Amazon?
Sorry, we can't help you! We never order anything from that company. They are our biggest single competitor and they are responsible for putting a lot of other bookstores out of business.
In fact, if your author website, social media bio, or marketing materials link only to your book’s listing on Amazon, we will not consider your request. We never read book reviews on that website and we do not pay attention to how well any book is selling for them.
For more information about why that is our policy and to get a sense of Amazon's business practices, check out this op-ed by Lexi Beach, the owner of Astoria Bookshop in New York. Or pick up one of the pamphlets to the right.
Interested in Consignment?
If your book is not available from our regular publishers or vendors, then the only other option for us to stock it would be on a consignment basis. This is an arrangement by which you, the author, supply books to us directly. The following are our consignment terms and policies:
- Due to limited space, our consignment program is only available to authors local to Spokane or the Pacific Northwest. (This includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana.)
- To be considered for consignment, books must appear professionally printed and should not be staple bound or spiral bound. The title and/or author's name should appear on the spine of the book.
- Our consignment period is six months, after which point we reserve the right to return any unsold stock.
- Consignment is received on a 40% discount, meaning that the store keeps 40% of retail and pays the author 60%.
- Payment is by invoice, and will be made when each invoice is clear, meaning that all copies on the invoice have either been sold or returned.
- If we decide to return your book we will send you a written notice, after which we will wait five weeks to hear back from you. If we do not hear back from you within that time, any copies to be returned will be donated. Returns can either be picked up at the store or mailed to the author at the author's expense.
- For a new consignment, we typically start by taking 3 or 4 copies of a book. (On rare occasions we may ask for more, depending on the situation.) Additionally, if you have several titles or a series of books, we may start with as few as two each.
To contact us about consigning your book, please email Kerry Mayer: kerry@auntiesbooks.com
If you are thinking about applying for an event with us as well as consignment, we first require that you are accepted into our consignment program and we are seeing a sustained interest and level of sales before scheduling an event. To request an event, please email our events coordinator Teri Ness: events@auntiesbooks.com