Indie books in B&N

[munboy]

Sorry if this has been posted somewhere. I didn't see it after a quick look.

But, it appears that B&N is trying to get a leg up on Amazon by selling self-published/Indie books in their stores. If you sell more than 1000 books a year, you can start seeing your books in their stores and be able to set up signings and such.

https://www.bookbusinessmag.com/post/interesting-twist-bn-sell-self-published-books/

I'm nowhere near having to worry about it, though. 

[Bill Hiatt]

It's a good move on their part, but the 1,000 copies--of a print book--isn't going to affect that many indie authors. Even people who are selling large volume of ebooks may well not make that 1,000 copies in print. The 500 ebooks in order to be eligible for instore events is perhaps somewhat better, but I don't know too many wide authors selling 500 ebooks in one year on Barnes and Noble alone. Had they made the cutoffs for consideration somewhat lower, the program might have seemed more like it would make a difference. Also, it's important to keep in mind that those sales figures make you eligible. There's no guarantee that you will actually see any of those benefits. There's a review process.

Meanwhile, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not seeing my KDP expanded-distribution paperbacks appearing on Barnes and Noble's website, even after a few months. At first I thought maybe they were only stocking paperbacks for which they also had an ebook, but one of my wide ebooks is available in paper, and guess what? It's not showing, either. It seems Nook Press is not just offering a really remote possibility of a carrot. Barnes and Noble is now offering a very big stick--publish through Nook Press, or don't get your books up on our website.

Or am I wrong about that? Anyone with KDP paperbacks see them on Barnes and Noble's website?

Anyway, I'm afraid I don't share the optimism of the article's author. I concur with the "Too little, too late" comments mentioned in the article.

[Tom Wood]

... Meanwhile, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not seeing my KDP expanded-distribution paperbacks appearing on Barnes and Noble's website, even after a few months. At first I thought maybe they were only stocking paperbacks for which they also had an ebook, but one of my wide ebooks is available in paper, and guess what? It's not showing, either. ...

It's my understanding that B&N has a policy to not carry any paper books if they can't also offer the ebook. It's their way of refusing Amazon's imprints, which are usually in KU in ebook format. But that is odd about your wide book not being listed. Are you using your own ISBNs?

[Bill Hiatt]

... Meanwhile, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not seeing my KDP expanded-distribution paperbacks appearing on Barnes and Noble's website, even after a few months. At first I thought maybe they were only stocking paperbacks for which they also had an ebook, but one of my wide ebooks is available in paper, and guess what? It's not showing, either. ...

It's my understanding that B&N has a policy to not carry any paper books if they can't also offer the ebook. It's their way of refusing Amazon's imprints, which are usually in KU in ebook format. But that is odd about your wide book not being listed. Are you using your own ISBNs?

They've had the policy of not carrying print when they couldn't carry the ebook for a long time, but my CS paperbacks that were expanded distribution always appeared there. (And ironically still do, through third-party resellers.) I think originally the policy was only applied to books from larger publishers (like Amazon imprints), but not to the self-published.

And no, it isn't my ISBN, but it wasn't for the earlier CS books, either. Whatever is happening is relatively new.

Whatever is happening, however, is not enough to prompt me to start using Nook Press or to wide with my remaining KU books. I don't think I ever sold a single paper copy on B & N when some of them were listed, so for me, it's not really worth the hassle.

[munboy]

It's a good move on their part, but the 1,000 copies--of a print book--isn't going to affect that many indie authors. Even people who are selling large volume of ebooks may well not make that 1,000 copies in print. The 500 ebooks in order to be eligible for instore events is perhaps somewhat better, but I don't know too many wide authors selling 500 ebooks in one year on Barnes and Noble alone. Had they made the cutoffs for consideration somewhat lower, the program might have seemed more like it would make a difference.

I read the article last night and read through it again today and realized its says you have to sell 500/1000 copies of a SINGLE book in a year. That cuts a lot more people off.

[okey dokey]

1,000 books in a year is about 3 copies a day.
Sounds doable to me.

Use your own ISBN

[Denise]

It's my understanding that B&N has a policy to not carry any paper books if they can't also offer the ebook. It's their way of refusing Amazon's imprints, which are usually in KU in ebook format. But that is odd about your wide book not being listed. Are you using your own ISBNs?

My books are on the B&N website, and I'm on KU. That said, I'm using Ingram. I had no idea they didn't carry KDP print books. Tht said, it's not like I would be losing any sales if they weren't there. 

[Tom Wood]

It's my understanding that B&N has a policy to not carry any paper books if they can't also offer the ebook. It's their way of refusing Amazon's imprints, which are usually in KU in ebook format. But that is odd about your wide book not being listed. Are you using your own ISBNs?

My books are on the B&N website, and I'm on KU. That said, I'm using Ingram. I had no idea they didn't carry KDP print books. Tht said, it's not like I would be losing any sales if they weren't there. 

I may be misremembering then. Maybe it's that they won't carry the paper books in their physical stores if they can't put the ebooks in their online store.

[123mlh]

They came out with this program a couple years ago. It's not new.

[Bill Hiatt]

1,000 books in a year is about 3 copies a day.
Sounds doable to me.

Use your own ISBN

I can visualize someone selling three copies per day of one ebook on B & N, but given how relatively small their market share is, the same person would probably be selling around thirty copies per day of one book on Amazon. When you look at it that way, it limits the field a little more.

Anyway, the people I've talked to about it recently are closer to three books per month than three books per day.

[Bill Hiatt]

It's my understanding that B&N has a policy to not carry any paper books if they can't also offer the ebook. It's their way of refusing Amazon's imprints, which are usually in KU in ebook format. But that is odd about your wide book not being listed. Are you using your own ISBNs?

My books are on the B&N website, and I'm on KU. That said, I'm using Ingram. I had no idea they didn't carry KDP print books. Tht said, it's not like I would be losing any sales if they weren't there. 

Yeah, I never sold any on B&N either. It's just nice to have them there.

Last I checked, KDP Print wasn't admitting that B&N wouldn't carry KDP Print books (which, if true, would have been another reason not to do away with CS). Nor has B&N ever said they weren't.

At first, I thought it might just be taking them a long time. It's also possible that mine are waiting longer because I wasn't using CS expanded distribution at the time it folded. Perhaps those people already distributed on B&N rolled over? I haven't anything one way or the other.

[Maggie Ann]

I cut out ED a while ago. I wasn't selling much that way, maybe a handful a year. Without ED, I could lower the price of my print books to something more reasonable. That strategy hasn't worked either, but I'm reluctant to raise my prices again.

I seem to recall that quite a few years ago, B&N refused to carry any books published through CS. My paper books never disappeared off the website, though, so I guess they meant they wouldn't carry them in the stores.

[Bill Hiatt]

I cut out ED a while ago. I wasn't selling much that way, maybe a handful a year. Without ED, I could lower the price of my print books to something more reasonable. That strategy hasn't worked either, but I'm reluctant to raise my prices again.

I seem to recall that quite a few years ago, B&N refused to carry any books published through CS. My paper books never disappeared off the website, though, so I guess they meant they wouldn't carry them in the stores.

That's why I got out of CS ED the first time. I wasn't selling anything in the expanded channels, and my Amazon paperback sales were way down. Now I have some books in KDP ED, and I'm getting some sales, but all still from Amazon. Without ED, I could lower my prices somewhat and still get a decent royalty. On the other hand, the idea of being wide on paper has a certain appeal.

On a note more relevant to this thread, I did some poking around. This article is interesting. https://www.newshelves.com/2018/09/06/kdp-ingramspark/. If it's accurate it suggests that KDP ED is only fully available for books with a KDP ISBN, and it provides the interesting insight that KDP used Ingram for distribution. (I read that they used Lightning Source years ago but wasn't sure if that was still true.)

I can't find anything anywhere that says B&N won't take KDP Print books, though there are a ton of articles about how it won't take Amazon imprints. If there is a policy of exclusion, it's not one B&N ever mentions, though why not I don't know. If, as seems to be the case, B&N wants to lure people into Nook Press for their paperbacks, that would be another point in favor of doing that.

As with so many things related to Amazon, the whole thing is a mystery at the moment.

[David VanDyke]

It's a 2016 article...

[munboy]

It's a 2016 article...

Huh...I wonder why it popped up in my news feed?

Ok, move along everybody. Old news. Nothing to see here!

[Bill Hiatt]

It's a 2016 article...

Huh...I wonder why it popped up in my news feed?

Ok, move along everybody. Old news. Nothing to see here!

I had heard about it before, but I don't think I'd ever heard all those specifics, so I thought it was a new change. Sigh!

I guess I was right in thinking it wouldn't be a big game-changer!

[Jeff Tanyard]

Ok, move along everybody. Old news. Nothing to see here!

 

You're a good sport, man.

As far as Barnes & Noble goes, I stopped trying to figure out what they were going to do a long time ago.  I'll take whatever sales I get from them, and I'd love to get traction there and build a fan base there, but I'm not going to try to divine the arcane mysteries of their corporate strategy, because on that path lies madness.   

[ilamont]

The idea probably came from either B&N press or someone in HQ. However, it sounds to me that the B&N store group wants little to do with self-published or small press authors, and has put in place mechanisms (including the minimum nook sales and manual review processes) to limit the program.

If you talk with the B&N marketplace group, it's a similar thing. They don't want to deal with self-published or indie authors. They were honestly baffled when I called to set up an account to sell new books, a la Amazon Seller or Amazon Advantage. They had me call another group who basically had me jump through a bunch of hoops (top sellers in Bookscan, complete ISBN list) before telling me they don't deal directly with publishers and I'll need to go through a distributor or wholesaler. 

This is after getting a special order from one of their stores for 1,000 units each of two ISBNs.

In other words, demonstrated interest from a B&N store and in bookscan, but the organization is unable to figure out how to onboard small publishers through any other program ... or in its heart doesn't want to. 

Walmart.com is similar. They have set up a marketplace program to compete with Amazon, but it's all done with manual review and high revenue threshholds. So, it's only a small group of publishers and sellers getting onto Walmart.com.


 

[David VanDyke]

Note that individual stores have always had no problem with setting up signings, as long as you followed some simple procedures, such as running all sales through their cashier. So you can print your own books, arrange for the signing with the manager, hand them the books on the day of, direct any fans or attendees to purchase their books at the register, and away you go. They will often even give you a little announcement or publicity.

[ilamont]

Note that individual stores have always had no problem with setting up signings, as long as you followed some simple procedures, such as running all sales through their cashier. So you can print your own books, arrange for the signing with the manager, hand them the books on the day of, direct any fans or attendees to purchase their books at the register, and away you go. They will often even give you a little announcement or publicity.

Yeah, sometimes you can get some real love at the individual store level.

It's the B&N institution that's the problem -- despite lots of talk, it's rarely able to innovate or see beyond the classic publisher/distributor model. Many new programs are outright failures, such as the B&N self-serve advertising launch.

It's a shame, because Amazon really needs some serious competition.

[Bill Hiatt]

Note that individual stores have always had no problem with setting up signings, as long as you followed some simple procedures, such as running all sales through their cashier. So you can print your own books, arrange for the signing with the manager, hand them the books on the day of, direct any fans or attendees to purchase their books at the register, and away you go. They will often even give you a little announcement or publicity.

Yeah, sometimes you can get some real love at the individual store level.

It's the B&N institution that's the problem -- despite lots of talk, it's rarely able to innovate or see beyond the classic publisher/distributor model. Many new programs are outright failures, such as the B&N self-serve advertising launch.

It's a shame, because Amazon really needs some serious competition.

Yes, I've always thought B&N could do better than it does, especially when trying to leverage self-publishing is concerned.

The last available figures showed Amazon making over a third of its ebooks sales from self-published books, not even counting "single-author publishers," AKA self-publishing under a different name. B&N was at more like 20%--and of a much smaller market share.  Had they gotten a bigger piece of the self-publishing pie when they still could have, their overall market share might be considerably bigger. Of course, if they hadn't deliberately tried to limit their online sales to "protect" their physical stores, they might have done better as well.

I remember when Nook Press announced that they would do hardcovers. I thought that was a great way to lure people away from CS, which didn't have that option. Oops! The hardcovers came without any distribution channels. Who does that? Well, B&N obviously.

I can understand putting thresholds on participation in certain indie author programs, but making them so high pretty much ensures that only a very small number of authors will ever get actual store placement. That doesn't create much of an incentive to transfer one's paperback production to Nook Press.

[munboy]

It's a 2016 article...

Huh...I wonder why it popped up in my news feed?

Ok, move along everybody. Old news. Nothing to see here!

I had heard about it before, but I don't think I'd ever heard all those specifics, so I thought it was a new change. Sigh!

I guess I was right in thinking it wouldn't be a big game-changer!

3 years on and some people obviously haven't even heard about it (like me). I'm guessing the 500/1000 single title sold is too large of a threshold to really be beneficial to most indies.

[dgcasey]

I seem to recall that quite a few years ago, B&N refused to carry any books published through CS.

They would carry them, but you had no shot of ever seeing your paperbacks on the shelves of your local B&N store. Not unless someone specifically ordered your book and then didn't pick up. Then it might end up on the discount shelf.

[dgcasey]

Yes, I've always thought B&N could do better than it does, especially when trying to leverage self-publishing is concerned.

What B&N needs to do (LISTEN UP B&N!) is hire a VP away from Amazon, who's familiar with the indie market and put them in charge of the B&N indie department. Just tell them the department is theirs and do whatever it takes to compete with Amazon.

[LilyBLily]

Note that individual stores have always had no problem with setting up signings, as long as you followed some simple procedures, such as running all sales through their cashier. So you can print your own books, arrange for the signing with the manager, hand them the books on the day of, direct any fans or attendees to purchase their books at the register, and away you go. They will often even give you a little announcement or publicity.

Recently several RWA authors have complained that B&N has not paid them for those sales. Like, ever.

None of my fiction titles in paperback are listed on B&N anymore, but I've withdrawn all of them from ED. My one nonfiction title, which I sell both on Amazon KDP and on Ingram directly, is listed. I occasionally make a few sales of that paperback via Ingram. They haven't paid me a cent yet, but I believe their terms are 90 days.

[DmGuay]

It's my understanding that B&N has a policy to not carry any paper books if they can't also offer the ebook.

I'm confused by all this talk of B&N not carrying paperbacks without ebooks. I have paperbacks on their site without ebooks. I just had to upload the print book files directly to Nook Press, rather than do expanded distribution through Createspace/KDP Print. I've sold a few, too. It's worth taking the ten minutes to upload.

[Maggie Ann]

It's my understanding that B&N has a policy to not carry any paper books if they can't also offer the ebook.

I'm confused by all this talk of B&N not carrying paperbacks without ebooks. I have paperbacks on their site without ebooks. I just had to upload the print book files directly to Nook Press, rather than do expanded distribution through Createspace/KDP Print. I've sold a few, too. It's worth taking the ten minutes to upload.

Didn't know that. Sounds like a good idea.

[Bill Hiatt]

It's my understanding that B&N has a policy to not carry any paper books if they can't also offer the ebook.

I'm confused by all this talk of B&N not carrying paperbacks without ebooks. I have paperbacks on their site without ebooks. I just had to upload the print book files directly to Nook Press, rather than do expanded distribution through Createspace/KDP Print. I've sold a few, too. It's worth taking the ten minutes to upload.

Did you find that you could use the same files you used with Amazon? I know a lot of PODs have slightly different requirements. Even CS and KDP Print were not identical, which resulted in issues for some authors during the transition.

[DmGuay]

It's my understanding that B&N has a policy to not carry any paper books if they can't also offer the ebook.

I'm confused by all this talk of B&N not carrying paperbacks without ebooks. I have paperbacks on their site without ebooks. I just had to upload the print book files directly to Nook Press, rather than do expanded distribution through Createspace/KDP Print. I've sold a few, too. It's worth taking the ten minutes to upload.

Did you find that you could use the same files you used with Amazon? I know a lot of PODs have slightly different requirements. Even CS and KDP Print were not identical, which resulted in issues for some authors during the transition.

Yes. The interior files were the same. I uploaded the same PDF to both sites.

I did have to slightly alter the cover file, because Nook has different trim margin requirements, but it wasn't that onerous to change them. I downloaded Nook's cover template and then made the cover adjustments in my design software. (I have photoshop, so I do this myself, but your cover designer could do it for you.)

[Bill Hiatt]

It's my understanding that B&N has a policy to not carry any paper books if they can't also offer the ebook.

I'm confused by all this talk of B&N not carrying paperbacks without ebooks. I have paperbacks on their site without ebooks. I just had to upload the print book files directly to Nook Press, rather than do expanded distribution through Createspace/KDP Print. I've sold a few, too. It's worth taking the ten minutes to upload.

Did you find that you could use the same files you used with Amazon? I know a lot of PODs have slightly different requirements. Even CS and KDP Print were not identical, which resulted in issues for some authors during the transition.

Yes. The interior files were the same. I uploaded the same PDF to both sites.

I did have to slightly alter the cover file, because Nook has different trim margin requirements, but it wasn't that onerous to change them. I downloaded Nook's cover template and then made the cover adjustments in my design software. (I have photoshop, so I do this myself, but your cover designer could do it for you.)

Thanks for the info!

[Joseph Malik]

Sorry if this has been posted somewhere. I didn't see it after a quick look.

But, it appears that B&N is trying to get a leg up on Amazon by selling self-published/Indie books in their stores. If you sell more than 1000 books a year, you can start seeing your books in their stores and be able to set up signings and such.

I've said it before and I stand by it: being in B&N is awesome. All those visions of sugarplums you had while nodding off in Introduction to Medieval Literature? Signings, readings, lectures, and just walking into a store and seeing your book on shelves; it's all that stuff. Walking into a store for a signing with a box of donuts and shaking hands with the staff and having one or two of them hand you a copy of your book to sign. It's everything that Amazon will never be able to do for an author. Amazon makes me more money, sure; but B&N makes me feel like a real writer.

For all the difficulties involved--their author interface is awful, their customer service (for authors) is practically nonexistent, you have to sell 1,000 Nook copies in a year to get your Golden Ticket--I make it a point to set up a signing at every B&N in any town I travel to, even if I'm traveling for my day job or just passing through on vacation. I live for this sh*t. Few better ways to spend an evening.