Schools

We believe that author visits can be one of the most effective ways to get children excited about books and reading.

We work with many local schools to support author visits and book events, drawing on our wide and growing network of authors and publishers.

Please contact us if you would like us to help you organise an author visit.  We will work with you to organise the visit, draft letters to go out to parents and, if there are book sales, we will organise that process for you.  We will discuss the best approach for your school when we set the visit up. We work closely with a school to understand what you aim to get out of a visit and to ensure that the day runs smoothly.

Schools often ask us about how author visits work, so we thought a quick guide would be helpful.

There are broadly two different kinds of author visits:

1. Visits that are tailored to the specific interests or needs of the school.  These usually last half a day or a full day and the author may either do more than one presentation tailored to different age groups and/or do work at a classroom level.  The content will be discussed and planned with the school in advance.  These visits incur an author fee and travel expenses.  A useful guide to getting the most out of an author visit and the likely costs can be found here.

2. Promotional events that are part of a book tour, normally promoting a new book.  These usually involve an assembly style presentation by the author (often including reading from the book and questions and answers).  These visits are generally free, on the understanding that there will be an opportunity to promote and sell the author’s books either after the event or by circulating purchase slips before the event.

Book Purchasing

We can help keep your book stock up to date and help you choose books that will engage your readers.

Our staff spend a lot of time reading children’s books and we also get lots of feedback from our customers and our book clubs.  We are very happy to advise you on books for particular year groups or topics, let you know about new and upcoming titles, help you draw up reading lists or supply books for prize givings.  We can also come in and help review the stock in your library or book corners and suggest cost effective ways of updating it.  We can usually get any book in print in the UK in within a week (faster if very urgent) and will deliver all orders over £100 free to your school.

We are pleased to offer schools the following discounts when purchasing books with us.

Standard Orders  – 10% discount

(delivered within 1 week)

Holiday Orders – 15% discount

(ordered before the end of term, for delivery at the beginning of the next term)

To find out more about ordering books with us email: schools@ottieandthebea.net