Frequently Asked Questions

Curious Minds

Please do not try to contact Louise Erdrich through Birchbark Books.

Louise is not able to respond to inquiries made through the bookstore or this website. For speaking or other engagements send a written request to: The Wylie Agency, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 2114, New York, NY 10107. The Wylie Agency does not take phone requests for bookings.

"I do come in whenever I can but I try to stay home and write as long as I possibly can every day. I do not have a predictable schedule -- or a predictable anything." ~ Louise

Yes! Every book by Louise Erdrich purchased on our website includes a bookplate signed by the author. Depending on her schedule and our busyness, we might run out of signed copies. We will never sell you an unsigned copy before receiving your permission. We will contact you within three days of your order if we are out of signed copies. You will then have the option to receive an unsigned copy right away, wait for up to a week for a signed copy, or receive a refund for your order.

The confessional was rescued from becoming a bar fixture.  It is now termed a Forgiveness Booth.

The canoe was handmade by Brian Baxter's best friend Charlie Gibson for his beautiful wife, Gina, who has generously allowed us to store it over the current and favorite titles table.

Dogs are really the only animals who like to be around human beings. In Ojibwe teachings, a dog walked beside the first human, and gave advice. Our dogs (the birchbarkers) like books and wanted to share their favorites.

Online Shop

Our website features books by and about Indigenous Americans. Our physical store offers a full range of books of interest to all readers. Please contact us or call 612-374-4023 to inquire about titles not listed online. If not in stock, we are able to special order most any book.

We impose a $600 cart limit for online orders. For larger orders please contact us or call (612) 374-4023.

If you are purchasing for a school, business, or tribe, please see the School Orders section below.

Authors & Events

Birchbark Books does not sell books on consignment. We will accept review copies in the mail from the publisher, but we can't accept books that are brought in by hand. Our primary focus is to promote accurate and truthful books written by and about Indigenous Americans. We make collective decisions about the books we carry in our store. If we decide to carry your book, we will contact the publisher directly. Please note that review copies will not be returned.

Although we love book events and author readings, we can only sustain a small number of them. For all inquiries about events, please email events@birchbarkbooks.com as far in advance as possible. We will respond once our staff makes a collective decision about your event.

School Orders

Please first reach out to our school order specialist Nadine so she can ensure we have your tax exempt information in our system and so she can set up an appointment time for you to shop. You must be prepared to pay that day - we cannot invoice you later on for an in-store purchase. In-store purchases are limited to $500 as we are first and foremost a retail store and prefer to process bulk orders differently than regular sales.

Potentially! We’ll do our best to assist you within your order’s timeline. However, we primarily process orders first come, first serve. If your order needs to be processed ASAP we will charge a rush order fee. Rush orders are charged 10% of the order’s total since we need to prioritize processing and shipping them over other orders made earlier. This is most especially applied toward the end of the fiscal year, June 30th, as it is our busy season and a common deadline for many organizations.

We are very happy to apply a 10% discount to bulk orders over $500, as long as it is not a rush order.

Shipping & Returns

We ship to the US, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, and European Union. Shipping speed estimates are based on ship date and will vary with the destination. Some items may not ship immediately. Please see "How long will it take for my order to arrive?" below.

We also offer free store pickup of online orders for those who prefer to visit the store.

Shipping services and estimated speeds include:

United States
USPS Media Mail: 2-9 business days
USPS Priority Mail: 1-3 business days
USPS First Class Mail: 1-5 business days

International
UPS Standard: 3-7 business days
UPS Worldwide Expedited: 2-5 business days
DHL eCommerce Parcel International Direct: 3-10 business days
DHL eCommerce Parcel International Standard: 4-8 business days

International orders:
- Prices are shown and payments are processed in your local currency.
- Tracking numbers are provided
- Duties and taxes are calculated at checkout. They will not be charged to you upon delivery.
- We are unable to refund duties, custom fees, or VAT for international orders after the order has shipped

Yes! Choose "Pick up" as the delivery option when checking out on our website. You will receive an email when your order is ready for you to pick up at the store.

While we strive to keep all of our online titles in stock, there may be delays for some items. We will contact you within three days of your purchase if we are out of stock of any items in your order. You will then have a choice to receive a partial shipment of your order or wait until we can ship it all together.

Please see the shipping options above for estimated delivery times once we ship your order. We appreciate your patience!

We accept returns within 30 days of purchase for items in mint, sellable condition. To be eligible for a return, your item must be in the same condition that you received it, unworn or unused. Items sent back to us without first requesting a return will not be accepted.

To request a return visit account.birchbarkbooks.com, login with the email used for the purchase, find the item in your order history and click Request Return. Alternatively you can contact us or call us at 612-374-4023. 

We are not able to cover the cost of return shipping but will fully refund your order once we receive the items in sellable condition. For details, please refer to our Refund Policy.

We are not able to refund duties, custom fees, or VAT for international orders once they have been shipped.

If your order arrives damaged, please contact us at (612) 374-4023 as soon as possible. We will work with you and the postal carrier to refund or replace your order. For details, please refer to our Refund Policy.

We are so sorry you haven't received your package yet! Once we ship out a package it is out of our hands, so we recommend you contact USPS directly with the tracking number associated with your order. They will know more about its status than we will. As a small business, we unfortunately cannot reship a package if it was stolen so if you have any concerns about that occurring, please carefully track the package so you can monitor its arrival.