In celebration of Māori and Pasifika Books

In February, we launched our 2023 Māori and Pasifika Books campaign. It’s been an excellent example of the book sector collaboration The Coalition for Books has come to stand for as an organisation.

We worked with publishers who submitted books for our catalogue, and to sell and promote on our stands at Te Matatini and Pasifika, as well as with writer and artist Mat Tait who provided artwork from his book Te Wehenga for the catalogue. We also partnered with booksellers Time Out Books and The Dorothy Butler Children’s Bookshop to sell books at each festival.

Two versions of the catalogue, in English and in te reo Māori were created.

Pictured below: The Coalition for Books stand at Pasifika Festival.

Te Matatini and Pasifika were excellent opportunities to showcase broad-ranging and brilliant Māori and Pasifika books and we were pleased to see strong book sales as well as hundreds of sign ups from reading and book enthusiasts to the Kete newsletter. And the buzz from those helping to work on our stand was that both festivals were fantastic fun and a great way to highlight these books.

In April, and into May, we continued to promote the campaign directly to the public, as well as to schools and libraries, with distribution of the printed catalogue through Wheelers and to bookshops too. A digital campaign has run throughout April with paid social media promotion as well as placement in the Kete Books newsletter.

There’s still time to share the news about the catalogue and the brilliant books featured in it!

Take a look at the catalogue and our shareable social media tiles (below). Download and share them if you haven’t already!