Along the Kāpiti Coast, in sunny Ōtaki, is one of our country’s youngest bookshops—Books & Co! Established in 2021, their team tells us what it’s like being the only independent bookshop in the area, their challenges, opportunities, and what books they enjoy the most.
Give us a one-paragraph history of your shop.
We opened in April 2021, and here we are almost three years later, feeling very much a part of our community and loving what we do! As the only bookshop in the area, our aim is to provide quality books across a wide range of genres for adults and children. We have a small but fabulous team of booksellers, we host book clubs and author events and engage with our local schools and kindergartens. We love the collaboration with other bookshops and feeling part of a network of book people.
We also recognise how important it is to support local businesses and how much we value our customers. A loyalty programme, gift wrapping, book recommendations and a monthly newsletter are all important to provide our customers with a great experience, whether they want to come in and browse or need our help with finding and ordering tricky books. We want our bookshop to be welcoming, exciting, inspiring, and a place where people can come and discover wonderful books! We are passionate about children’s books and have recently expanded into a small annexe next door where we have created our children’s bookshop area, a special space for children and caregivers.
We want our bookshop to be welcoming, exciting, inspiring, and a place where people can come and discover wonderful books
What are you recommending this month?
Robin Peace’s new poetry collection, Detritus of Empire, which was launched at our bookshop on 7 April, The Grimmelings by Rachael King, Turncoat by Tīhema Baker, The Women by Kristin Hannah, Nine Girls by Stacey Gregg, and Salt River Road by Molly Schmidt.
What new releases are you looking forward to over the next few months?
We’ve just read and really enjoyed Briefly Very Beautiful by Roz Dineen and Sandwich by Catherine Newman, both of which are due out in June. Further out we can’t wait to read the next books by Bonnie Gamus and Lauren Groff.
What do you wish was selling better?
Children’s middle grade to teen fiction and YA fiction—there are so many great books coming out all the time and we would love to get them into the hands of readers! We have a lot of parents and grandparents who come in to choose books, and we would like to get more young people into the shop too, so we need to work on this!
What do you wish publishers would publish?
We would like more local content relevant to Ōtaki/Kāpiti—history, flora and fauna, local walks and things to do, and local guidebooks. People do want to read about our environment and things that are relevant to our location.
What unique challenges/opportunities do you face in your business?
As the only bookshop in town, and the only fully independent bookshop for adults and children on the Kāpiti coast, we aim to provide the books that our community wants and to be a destination for booklovers from everywhere! Letting people know we are here and attracting more foot traffic are some of our challenges, as well as ensuring we have the right books and can offer a great customer experience.
[As] the only fully independent bookshop for adults and children on the Kāpiti coast, we aim to provide the books that our community wants and to be a destination for booklovers from everywhere
Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about things you care about, events you have planned, new initiatives, complaints, compliments, anything?
We have a number of events coming up with local authors, and these are building in popularity. We are enjoying collaborating with other local businesses where we can and are involved in a new local business association which is just getting underway. We want to engage more with local schools and any events where we can help to promote literacy and getting children reading. A children’s book club is something we would like to see, and creating an area for people to sit and read is definitely in our planning!
Check out Books & Co on their website, or find them on Facebook and Instagram.