Category: Library News

Congrats to Riley Chance (aka Roger McEwan) whose book Surveillance is a finalist for Best First Novel in the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards!

McEwan’s novel attempts to answer the question: “what would New Zealand look like under mass surveillance?”

The author, who originally wanted to remain anonymous behind his nom de plume, finally revealed his true identity recently, stating that it was because “I need to get along to events. If there’s a writers’ festival and they say can I come and talk, I have to.“

The Ngaio Marsh Awards were established in 2010 by indefatigable #yeahnoir fan Craig Sisterson, to promote crime, mystery and thriller writers from New Zealand.

Another local author made the longlist for the Ngaios: GB Ralph with Murder on Milverton Square. Go, local authors!

Congratulations! You’ve written a book! Not everybody can say they’ve done that!

Now you’d like the Library to buy your book. Okay, first read this article about library supply companies.

Got it? Right, now let’s have a look at what the librarian is thinking about when they’re deciding about purchasing your book.

The number one thing they’ll want to know is ‘will people who come to the Library want to read this?’ A library generally only holds onto books that people want to take home and read. So you want to make your book attractive to someone who’s browsing. Make sure it has a good cover. (You’ll find a blog post about covers here.) A snappy blurb. A great first sentence, etc.

Make sure you know what genre you’re writing in. Perhaps even go to the library to find books similar to yours. That way you can tell the librarian where you think it fits. Where it will get the most usage.

If you’ve written a thriller novel for adults but printed it in A4 size, your book will quite literally not fit in the collection. The Fiction shelves are spaced for novels of a certain size range.

If you’ve written a children’s picture book with 100 words per page, you might have written a chapter book by mistake. Again, go to the Library and see what other books are similar to yours, and how they are presented.

All set? Great. Now, read this article on how to approach the Library about your book, or go to the Local Author Resource page for more.

Firstly, congratulations on writing a book!

Next step: contact the Content Development Librarians. The City Library does not accept unsolicited materials, and we do not accept donations, so contact us first and we’ll tell you everything you need to know.

We can’t buy everything. As Lemmy from Motorhead often said: where would you put it? Content Development Librarians decide which books to buy, based on the current shape of the collection, the buzz around the book, past performance of an author, and all sorts of other factors. If there’s legitimate demand, we’ll hear about it.

Content Development Librarians are often away from their desks doing various jobs, so be sure to send an email or make an appointment to chat with us. We love talking to local authors!

Please bear in mind that a public library does not hold copies of a book forever. There is a constant rotation of stock, and when your book is removed from the collection, it is purely a practical thing and not a judgement on its quality.

Have a look at our page of advice for authors too – you may find your question already answered on there.

What to put in your email/one-sheet

Kick off with something like “New book from local author”.

Give us a quick blurb – basically the same thing you’d put on the back cover of your book.

Tell us anything unique about it – this might be your “elevator pitch“.

Attach a good quality cover image.

Tell us the price, the release date, the ISBN – all the publication details.

Make sure to include a link to where we can buy the book. Maybe from Wheelers, or a local bookshop.

It’s always good to end by thanking the recipient for their time.

When will you hear back?

Generally, with public libraries, you won’t hear anything back. They’ll either buy your book or not.

After all, you’re the one who will know when your books are sold at shops or through Wheelers, and your email is a sales advertisement not a customer query.

Since there are more and more self-published books every year, the Library receives more and more emails. It might take a few weeks to look at them and make a decision.

If you really need to know so that you can sign up for the Public Lending Right Scheme, you can always check the Library’s catalogue any time.