For Authors
Congratulations on your book! BTB is proud to support local writers by showcasing their books on our shelves.
Since our opening in January 2026, many authors have reached out to pitch their book. Box Turtle Books aims to be a champion for our community, for rural writers, and for often-overlooked voices with unique perspectives, particularly queer, BIPOC, and/or female. As time has passed, we’ve been able to review trends in customer shopping, and have a better understanding of both what we, as a bookstore, want to showcase, as well as what our customers are willing to buy, especially during turbulent economic times.
With this in mind, Box Turtle Books has revised our policies regarding local and regional author inquires. The new policy, found on this page, is in effect starting in May 2026. Importantly, we ask that authors do not pitch their books in-store to our staff, and rather do go through the proper channels to get your books onto our shelves.
If your book was published by a major or larger independent publisher, the best way to get your book on our shelves is to have your publisher contact us with information about you and your book. Our buyer can work directly with your publisher to add your book to our inventory.
If you are interested in hosting an event at Box Turtle Books, ask your publisher to email us to start the conversation about programming at our store.
Box Turtle Books does not offer consignment. If your book has been published traditionally and we feel that we have the appropriate audience, we will place our order through your publisher or one of our regular distributors on standard industry terms. If you are considering self-publication and want to see your book in brick-and-mortar bookstores, please consider Ingram Spark rather than Amazon. Please note that setting the discount to 55% on Ingram Spark does not pass that discount on to bookstores. Ingram keeps a portion of that amount and charges bookstores at the standard industry discount.
If your book is self-published and not available through our regular distributors, or is only available on a non-returnable basis or without standard terms, we may decide to purchase from you directly.
If your book is a good fit for our store, we generally start with 1 - 2 copies, depending on genre, and will reorder as they are sold. The success of your book in our store depends largely on your promotion and sharing with your family, friends, and followers that it is available for purchase at Box Turtle Books.
For Self-Published Authors:
If your book is self-published or published by a small press with limited distribution, you may submit it only through our online Indie Author Application. Please take note of the following details:
We will not consider submissions by email or by an in-person visit to Box Turtle Books.
If any part of your book was created with the use of artificial intelligence (AI), we will not carry it.
This includes writing, editing, illustration, design, typesetting, etc.
If your book was published through any of Amazon's services, we will not carry it.
Amazon is the direct competitor of independent booksellers everywhere, and our decision to discontinue stocking Amazon-published books is one we do not take lightly. We are happy to consider any future titles that are not published through Amazon, such as Ingram Spark.
Our customers particularly enjoy books on local history (both nonfiction and historical fiction), literary fiction, romance, mysteries, and children’s literature.
What we need to know about your book:
Most importantly, we need to know how and why your book will appeal to readers who shop at Box Turtle Books. These readers are looking for books that have been attractively and professionally designed and published, carefully edited and proofread, and competitively priced. We encourage you to get to know our bookstore and the types of books we sell by following us online and visiting in person. When you are familiar with our store, it will be easy to explain why your book will be a hit with our shoppers. Additionally, if we know you as a someone who attends our events and shops with Box Turtle Books, we will have a better sense of whether you are local, we’ll know that you understand our store’s mission and ethos, and that you support independent booksellers.
How to help your book succeed:
If we choose to stock your book, we will do our best to inform our customers about your work. This will include highlighting your work on our shelf with blue Local Author Shelf Talkers, which our customers know to look for while they shop, and adding you to our Bookshop.org Local Authors list (another reason we encourage using Ingram Spark!). At the same time, we have thousands of books in our store, and cannot individually promote every single one.
We encourage you to develop a marketing plan for your book, and have listed ideas below to help you get started:
Let family and friends know about your book
Create social media pages to promote yourself as an author and to share your work
If you are an expert or specialist in your topic, look for speaking engagements and other promotional opportunities related to your field
Get involved with organizations that align with your writing and your values, like writing groups and/or civic groups
Send review copies of your book to reviewers, “influencers” (BookTok, Bookstagram, etc.), and authors with whom you have a relationship
Solicit book reviews and blurbs from readers
Reach out to local media outlets for feature stories as a local author
Set up a booth a regional book festivals to reach a wider local audience
Research and consider paid advertising
Follow Box Turtle Books on social media, and let your followers know they can purchase your book locally and in-person
Come into the store to take a photo of your book on our shelf and share it with your followers and fans