We sell books and greetings cards we love – and actually some we don’t personally love. And not every book we love is available at Kett’s Books. Choosing the books we sell is more complicated than just putting books we enjoy on the shelf.
As a community bookshop we do work together to make decisions. And the best way to keep decisions consistent for ourselves and for our customers is to have policies, which we are happy to share with you.
This is not an exhaustive list. Whether we stock a book or not is our decision, and stops with our buyer.
- We select titles which are likely to be of interest to our market.
- We review what sells and what doesn’t, and adjust the next stock order in response to customers’ interests.
- In general we sell new titles, as well as some ‘backlist’ titles that remain of interest.
- We give preference to books from known publishers, because that gives us assurance of the editorial process and quality.
- We prefer to sell books which are easily available from our supplier Gardners (or other suppliers we already have accounts with), and which are offered at our standard trade discount.
- We like to work with people who are like-minded and understand what we’re doing with the community bookshop.
The fact an author or artist is local isn’t enough reason for us to stock their books. If the book is of clear local interest, and the author is evidently active in the Wymondham community, we will be interested in having a conversation. Otherwise the book will be considered alongside all the other books available.
If you’re a local author or artist, we suggest you have a look at our leaflet, which gives more advice about what writers and artists should do next.
Please note that we do not accept donations of books from authors. If you leave your books unsolicited, we may ask you to come back and get them, or we may find new homes for them, without contacting you. Please consider our book-selecting process and our guidance for self-published authors carefully .