Writer Sanctum
Writer's Haven => Marketing Loft [Public] => Topic started by: alhawke on June 09, 2024, 03:24:40 AM
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I've lost about ten paperbacks that were published via Ingram. I have 24 published. Ten are no longer showing up on Barnes and Noble :icon_sad:. As far as I can guess, they're my lowest selling titles. But... I'm unsure. Anyone else experiencing this and can tell me why?
I doubt emailing B&N is worth it. It's rare that I've gotten a response regarding paperback distribution from them. I could check with Ingram...
Is B&N cleaning up shop for Indie paperbacks? It's strange, in a way because, these are POD not stocked books. Why delete POD books in case a reader wants to order them?
One option would be for me to try to publish direct via B&N in the future, but I'm not even sure if all this is just a temporary fluke.
Anyway, I have a feeling we're gonna be hearing more about this. Unless it's just me. But B&N is the highest selling paperback distributor next to Amazon, as far as I know.
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It's a good idea to check on these things from time to time. I discovered that several of my ebooks were not on sale on B&N even though the files were there. Why???
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Ebooks too?! :HB :rant :evil2:
Do you publish direct to B&N or via an aggregator? All my ebooks are there but I publish the ebooks direct.
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Oh, my goodness.
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:evil2: Thanks so much for the info, Wonder.
Of course, B&N can do whatever they want, but... I kinda wonder, why now? Indie POD's been around for over a decade. Why such a broad-stroked :writethink: approach all of a sudden?
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I removed my previous screenshot because apparently we're not allowed to post screenshots from that group.
Anyway, the gist is that BN apparently has decided to delist indie author books published through Ingram because they're getting too many fake books and scammy crap published through that channel. They'll be deciding which indie-Ingram books to distribute on a case by case basis meaning it seems you can no longer trust that books published through Ingram will end up on BN.
It's unclear if they are delisting ALL indie books through Ingram, or just some. I get the sense there's some sort of house cleaning happening. Lots of people are reporting books missing. I don't know any more than that.
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My Christmas ebook is just gone. It's G rated and has been there for a while. Published through D2D. I'm taking all my ebooks off their site. My business, my rules.
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So ebooks are being removed from B&N when published by D2D? If this is not just paperbacks, this is really bad news for Indie writers. And it's particularly concerning for me. Most of my wide sales are B&N. I mentioned publishing B&N paperbacks direct as an option. But that'd be if my direct B&N ebooks don't start getting removed too :icon_eek:.
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Huh. I hadn't heard of ebooks disappearing until now. I'll probably give things a couple weeks to shake out and see if I can get a clearer picture of what's happening before I make any changes to distribution. Hopefully D2D or BN will clarify matters in the next few days. Relying on internet rumor is honestly the dumbest way to have to do business. :icon_rolleyes:
Wonder
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D2D uses Ingram for paperbacks.
That's why there is no choice in which platforms your paperbacks go on.
Interesting though. It sure sounds like the low content spammers are going through Ingram now that KDP dungeoned them.
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It sure sounds like the low content spammers are going through Ingram now that KDP dungeoned them.
More of mine have been removed. Are they removing all of them??? Mine aren't low content spammers. This is complete removal. And if ebooks get removed, is this removal of all Indie books? This is pretty crazy and upsetting.
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It sure sounds like the low content spammers are going through Ingram now that KDP dungeoned them.
More of mine have been removed. Are they removing all of them??? Mine aren't low content spammers. This is complete removal. And if ebooks get removed, is this removal of all Indie books? This is pretty crazy and upsetting.
All I'm suggesting is B&N could be removing everything from Ingram, rather than trying to control low content specifically.
Or it just might be B&N had a falling out with Ingram and are removing everything from there. Could be B&N told Ingram to stop sending low content and they refused.
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Could be. I have a feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg and we'll hear more news soon over this. I've received no notice from B&N and I'm not aware of anything sent to the writer community. If this is affecting other authors then there are a lot of authors bound to be upset. If it's an Ingram thing, I'd be willing to re-publish my paperbacks via B&N direct too. But like you said, B&N gets their paperback POD books from Ingram too, so...
I think the ebook removal, which hasn't affected me yet, is actually the most concerning here. And I'm thinking it hasn't happened to my ebooks yet because my ebooks were published via B&N direct.
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I took a look at my listings. All my direct to BN ebooks are there. The only paperback I can find is the one I published last year direct to BN. It was a trial run to see if I wanted to start publishing my paperbacks direct with BN since I don't use Ingram and KDP print doesn't get there the way CreateSpace did. I guess the answer to that is yes, now. :o
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It sure sounds like the low content spammers are going through Ingram now that KDP dungeoned them.
More of mine have been removed. Are they removing all of them??? Mine aren't low content spammers. This is complete removal. And if ebooks get removed, is this removal of all Indie books? This is pretty crazy and upsetting.
It's fair to be upset. I'd been doing more advertising and promotion with barnes & noble, encouraging paperback readers to buy there, and now I don't know what I'll do. They may have good reasons for making a change, but rug-pulling books from the catalog with zero communication is so disrespectful.
I hope there's an explanation offered soon.
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It's not just Ingram books. B & N removed all but one of my paperbacks distributed through KDP.
Not knowing about the Ingram thing, my first thought was that BN was extending their ban on paperbacks for which they couldn't also distribute the ebook editions (long ago applied to Amazon imprints) to indies.
In my case, all my paperback sales come from Amazon, not from expanded distribution, so it's not going to affect me personally. After a moment of angst, I basically gave BN a mental **** you and moved on. But on behalf of those of you who do makes sales through BN, I hope this is resolved soon.
If it's both Ingram and KDP, that suggests the targeting isn't related either to junk coming in through Ingram or paperback editions of KDP select titles coming in through KDP. Is a a general declaration of war on every indie title that isn't published by BN itself? For a while, BN was trying the carrot. ("Publish through us, and maybe we'll put your book in brick and mortar locations.") That would have been a more effective carrot, however, if BN had been able to point to any success stories of people who actually got store placement. Regardless, could they have moved from the carrot to the stick. If so, I have a suggestion for where they can put that stick...
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FWIW – I use D2D for wide. Using an incognito browser, I searched BN for my name. All my books came up in the results.
R.C.
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I get the same result using that method--most of my paperbacks are gone.
I think what's happening is happening gradually. I still have one paperback up for no particular reason.
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I get the same result using that method--most of my paperbacks are gone.
I think what's happening is happening gradually. I still have one paperback up for no particular reason.
Ah! Important note, none of my D2D wide are paperback.
R.C.
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I've just asked a question on Quora about this. Some of those who work there might know what's going on.
Might or might not get an answer.
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Still getting worse on Facebook. I believe a few authors are contacting groups like ALLi, but no word yet. Might see more on Monday? I'm out of B&N, so not really paying as much attention as if I still had any books there.
Side note: May or may not be related, but one of my free ebooks flipped back to paid this morning on Amazon. Might be worth checking if a Nook book disappears and anyone has a price match to free on Amazon.
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No response on Quora. Seems none of the people who answer B&N questions know what's happening either.
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My friend is on vacation, so I checked her paperbacks...they've been disappearing all afternoon. :icon_sad:
ETA: This is epic fantasy.
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I'm seeing a few places where authors are saying if they have the audiobooks with a trad publisher, the paperbacks aren't coming down. Others seem to be disappearing...
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I'm seeing a few places where authors are saying if they have the audiobooks with a trad publisher, the paperbacks aren't coming down. Others seem to be disappearing...
I have some books that have audio where the paperback is gone.
I also know of a non-Indie author who has one paperback missing. So it's not just Indie.
It's all reminding me of Hoopla, only Hoopla is picky at the start. They don't remove them later. But, similar to Hoopla, my best selling book which is 1st in the series was dropped. So now readers can only pick up paperbacks later in the series. :doh:
I don't see how they're determining all this. I look forward to more news. Thanks to all of you for all the comments and please let me know if you hear more . My greatest wish is be that it all just reverts back to normal tomorrow. It's a nice wish.
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All I'm suggesting is B&N could be removing everything from Ingram, rather than trying to control low content specifically.
Or it just might be B&N had a falling out with Ingram and are removing everything from there. Could be B&N told Ingram to stop sending low content and they refused.
That's what this sounds like to me. :shrug
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I'd buy that theory, too--except that, as I said, I don't distribute through Ingram, and my paperbacks also disappeared.
That doesn't preclude the possibility that BN had a fight with Ingram. But it does suggest that's not the only issue.
Actually, BN has been erratic with my catalog for a long time. The paperbacks up were mostly the most recently released, but with a couple of odd exceptions. It could have had all of them if it had wanted.
Right now, it has the few ebooks I have wide (one of which has a paperback that I think got recently dropped, which blows my theory that BN was dropping paperbacks for which they couldn't market the ebook). I still have one random paperback up. I also have one audiobook up (distributed by Findaway/Spotify). That one has a paperback that isn't up.
I'd almost rather not be on BN at all than be there in bits and pieces like this. It provides, as Amazon would say, a poor customer experience.
This reminds me a little of Google's periodic decisions to freeze new indies out for a while, except that it's both more general and less consistent.
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I keep checking mine to be sure nothing has changed since I first became aware of the paperback issue, but so far everything I've published directly through BN is still there, all my ebooks and my one paperback.
Everything that was CreateSpace is gone now, but nothing that was KDP Print ever showed up there anyway despite expanded distribution at KDP.
It feels like they might be cleaning up their catalogs. But I have no idea why they've decided to include Ingram in that, if they are.
I could guess about D2D and that would be that the surge of books publishing or republishing from the migration from Smashwords is having an effect on listings, maybe even triggering BN to drop them, but it's just a wild guess.
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I could guess about D2D and that would be that the surge of books publishing or republishing from the migration from Smashwords is having an effect on listings, maybe even triggering BN to drop them, but it's just a wild guess.
That could well be a trigger.
If D2D is adding the merged Smashwords books not previously in BN on there automatically, and they're not what BN allows, there could have been a major argument about it, and BN just pulled the plug on all of them, Amazon included.
Smashwords used to publish a lot of stuff that no-one else wanted. Maybe all that hit BN in a wave, and they panicked. Then just decided to pull everything from outside sources instead of trying weed out the new stuff coming in.
Guessing though.
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No, you still have to choose who you distribute to, because the only thing that's automatic is what you've already got selected.
I meant in the context of the transfer. I'm not sure how they're handling it. As in, are the books being republished to BN as new books from D2D or did they make contact with BN and let them know this was happening, that these books were all already published, and that the books would be coming in from D2D now instead of Smashwords.
That kind of thing. A volume thing.
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I meant in the context of the transfer. I'm not sure how they're handling it. As in, are the books being republished to BN as new books from D2D or did they make contact with BN and let them know this was happening, that these books were all already published, and that the books would be coming in from D2D now instead of Smashwords.
That suggests they might have duplicated a lot of books without stopping to find out if they were already there.
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I meant in the context of the transfer. I'm not sure how they're handling it. As in, are the books being republished to BN as new books from D2D or did they make contact with BN and let them know this was happening, that these books were all already published, and that the books would be coming in from D2D now instead of Smashwords.
That suggests they might have duplicated a lot of books without stopping to find out if they were already there.
Yeah, I thought it was obvious that it would not be duplicated or sent as new books but I've learned my lesson with them about what is obvious. I haven't found where they've discussed technical details of how they're handling this transition from Smashwords to Draft2Digital, but I do know my books were listed as "publishing" after the transfer. So even if it's coming in as the exact same book and there's no change, it appears as if the transfer/merge has triggered all the books that were moved from Smashwords to D2D to do an update with the retailer at the least and a complete republishing at the worst.
If it's anything like what I'm imagining, it could definitely strain some systems that aren't robust enough to handle a massive increase in "updating" or "publishing" ebooks.
Which might be entirely wrong, but I don't know, because I haven't found an actual explanation of the process.
Also, I do not have ebooks going from D2D to BN. I go direct with BN, and all my books are still there, except for print books published through KDP Print.
I kind of think the missing paperbacks from Ingram issue and the D2D ebooks issue are probably separate issues that happened to hit at the same time.
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Just as a matter of interest, does going direct with BN distribute to anyone else, anywhere?
I've been wondering about using them direct, but if they are just US, it's a lot of work for limited reach, even if that market is the biggest.
I'm thinking of doing trilogies of my entire universe in a single series, just as paperbacks. Just ignore the series, and put them in volumes in the recommended reading order. That's 23 odd paperbacks of minimum 3 books, and maximum 6 where shorts are included.
It's a lot of work though.
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Just as a matter of interest, does going direct with BN distribute to anyone else, anywhere?
I've been wondering about using them direct, but if they are just US, it's a lot of work for limited reach, even if that market is the biggest.
I'm thinking of doing trilogies of my entire universe in a single series, just as paperbacks. Just ignore the series, and put them in volumes in the recommended reading order. That's 23 odd paperbacks of minimum 3 books, and maximum 6 where shorts are included.
It's a lot of work though.
As far as I know, US only. Sorry.
Adding a paperback was pretty simple. I just used the files I used for KDP, but I did have to make some adjustments to the spine width for the cover. Their setup requirements for the cover were just a little different. They do have a cover creator if I remember correctly. So if you use a front cover only and let them do the rest, should be easy.
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Adding a paperback was pretty simple. I just used the files I used for KDP, but I did have to make some adjustments to the spine width for the cover. Their setup requirements for the cover were just a little different.
Smaller or bigger spine? And do they do their own PSD cover template like Amazon do?
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Adding a paperback was pretty simple. I just used the files I used for KDP, but I did have to make some adjustments to the spine width for the cover. Their setup requirements for the cover were just a little different.
Smaller or bigger spine? And do they do their own PSD cover template like Amazon do?
38 pixels smaller (width). The safe area for text on the front and back cover was also a bit smaller. So anything close to the edges of what is safe on a KDP print cover will probably need to be adjusted.
I don't know if they do their own. I uploaded my own cover. I just think I remember there being an option to make a cover if you don't have one.
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For those who don't know, B&N has been purposely taking down indies' books. It's a controversy brewing and authors have begun to take action. I contacted The Alliance of Independent Authors and Authors Guild has already been contacted. This is not a mistake, this is a purge. B&N is doing this under the guise of "quality" control and discriminating against indie's books. They are not informing authors of this until you email and ask why your books were taken down. An author has been sharing her correspondence with B&N in the Wide For The Win group on Facebook. There is a big discussion on this in that group so if you are in the group, check it out to learn more. If you are in a writers' organization, contact them and urge them to get involved. Authors who've contacted D2D have been told D2D will contact B&N but admit they have no power against this decision.
So, that's what's happening.
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Have you (or anyone) heard of any authors who are direct with BN having their books that are direct with BN removed?
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Have you (or anyone) heard of any authors who are direct with BN having their books that are direct with BN removed?
I've been wondering this exact same thing too. A few years ago, Amazon started making my paperback's from Ingram unavailable. That's why I decided to publish my paperbacks through BOTH Amazon and Ingram. Is B&N doing this now to increase their royalty share? If so, I can publish through B&N. Wouldn't be a huge bother.
For those who don't know, B&N has been purposely taking down indies' books.
But is it certain that it's only Indie? I've seen publisher's books affected too.
I emailed B&N but got a robotic response. It asked me if I wanted to speak to real person. I said yes. I don't know if they'll respond. Unfortunately, B&N has never been easy to contact. But I'll let you all know if I hear anything further.
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I had hopes that things would be better under the new management. Sigh!
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Hopefully someone will contact Publishers Weekly, because this sounds like a story they would want to cover. Also, B&N would have to talk to PW. This is not part of the positive spin of the past few years from B&N, so it's newsworthy.
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Have you (or anyone) heard of any authors who are direct with BN having their books that are direct with BN removed?
No. In fact, there is a theory from some (and even I wonder if it's true) that B&N is doing this as a way to force authors to use Nook Press. If so, this is beyond shameful. But out of say 200 authors I've seen saying they've had some books removed (including myself), I don't think any have been from Nook Press. B&N has removed a bunch of mine but kept some up. Some people they've removed ALL of their print books while others say they've had a few removed. Seems like people who use Draft2Digital are getting removed even more than those who use Ingrams. I use D2D for my paperbacks. But no, I can't say for sure if any Nook Press books haven't been removed but there have been a lot of authors posting about their books vanishing and NONE of them so far have been from Nook Press.
Yeah, so it does make you wonder. If this is what B&N is doing, ridiculous. This is no better than say Amazon doing something to force authors into KU. You can't force authors to use your POD service.
Also, they are also removing books from Amazon Expanded Distribution as well.
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Hopefully someone will contact Publishers Weekly, because this sounds like a story they would want to cover. Also, B&N would have to talk to PW. This is not part of the positive spin of the past few years from B&N, so it's newsworthy.
I'm pretty sure we'll start seeing articles about this soon. Especially with organizations like The Authors Guild looking into it. And to think, after months of low paperback sales, my paperbacks sales had come up again and now this. I'm pretty sure I sell most of my paperbacks from B&N. This stinks but we just have to fight it. B&N has to answer for this.
I'm also very disappointed in Draft2Digital having such a cavalier attitude as if it's no big deal. They don't seem too concerned even though they keep telling authors they will speak to B&N. But I see no fight coming from them whatsoever. They can't even send their authors out emails addressing this! Wouldn't that be the first thing you do if you cared? It's like D2D doesn't realize how much this would hurt their business because I'm betting more authors use them for print than ebook distribution because tons of KU authors use D2D too. So it's not just wide authors who use them. KU authors use them for print. They are going to lose thousands of authors if B&N is no longer accepting indie print books. What would be the incentive to even do print if one of the biggest print sellers won't take your books? Meaning, why would someone waste time doing print with D2D.
Since the Smashwords merger, D2D has gone downhill considerably. Horruble customer service and also a big lack of concern for authors now. They've made crappy changes and don't seem to care how it affects authors when they used to be so author-friendly. Guess that's what happens when you get too big. But this B&N print thing will be devastating for D2D so they better get it in gear and take some action on their part.
I can't believe this is happening honestly. It's like this whole world's in a timewarp and people are forcing us back to the "old days." Now we are going back to when indie books were seen as inferior and when retailers refused to stock POD? Really? After all the progress indies have made, we are going backwards?
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Yes, all my paperbacks that are in expanded distribution at KDP are gone from BN. But the new ones never showed up on BN for me anyway despite expanded distribution. That was the reason I made a BN paperback edition of my newest book. As of today, that paperback is still available and all my ebooks (which are direct through Barnes & Noble) are also available.
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No. In fact, there is a theory from some (and even I wonder if it's true) that B&N is doing this as a way to force authors to use Nook Press.
I think this is exactly what they're doing. None of my ebooks directly sold from B&N have been removed (yet). Nearly every paperback. And when I contacted them, they said that since I don't publish my paperback direct through them, they suggested I contact Ingram about the issue. I'm going to do that.
As I said above^^, this isn't the first time a publisher has taken down paperbacks if not directly produced by them. Amazon did that to my books initially and I had to publish all my paperbacks by Ingram AND Amazon. I mean, I had to. Amazon is my biggest paperback seller. But, as far as I know, Amazon never took down ebooks that were sold by D2D or an aggregator. That's a new one.
All in all, yeah, it sucks real bad. B&N is my biggest paperback seller outside of Amazon. And, actually with my books, B&N is my biggest outside ebook seller too.
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Did I miss the part where they took down ebooks? I thought the problem was just paperbacks. The few ebooks I still have wide are all still up. (And oddly, an audio book that wasn't up has now appeared.)
While I don't like this move, if ebooks were affected, wide authors could go direct to BN. After all, authors have had to do that with Google for some time. That was annoying, too, but people adapted.
As for paperbooks, a look at the website suggested to me what's going on. Nook Press is Now Barnes and Noble Press, and it seems to provide paperbacks and hardcovers exclusively to Barnes and Noble--no more expanded distribution from them for physical books. They aren't even pretending to offer store placement anymore, though they point out that a customer can order special order BN Press books at any store. What they do claim to offer is
We highlight both emerging and established B&N Press authors in monthly themed collections on BN.com.
Reach half a million readers with our featured genre and deals newsletters.
Your book could be featured in special offers exclusive to Barnes & Noble readers.
Now, all of that sounds impressive. It might not amount to the proverbial hill of beans, or it might be a meaningful burst of promotion, at least at first. My new theory is that BN is clearing the decks so that it can focus on indies it distributes. If they did meaningful promotion, that might actually end up being a good thing (aside from the hassle of having to set up paperbacks with a second or third distributor, depending on your current model).
So yeah, it isn't good, but it isn't really any worse that past shenanigans by Amazon or Google.
Edit: You can use BN Press for physical books only, meaning that those of us in KU could still go direct to BN in paper.
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Did I miss the part where they took down ebooks? I thought the problem was just paperbacks.
Yes. ^^ some writers are reporting ebooks missing that were distributed by D2D. I have all mine sold direct still selling.
I'll make adjustments and re-publish all my paperbacks by B&N if that turns out to be the problem. I'm waiting a bit longer to see for sure if this is the cause it's going to be a major pain and time suck for 24 titles.
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I just thought of yet another possibility. Over the past year, Ingram dropped their fee for publishing books. That could have sent over a glut of new paperbacks/hardcovers that overwhelmed B&N from Ingram ??
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One of my ebooks was missing (and I read about some others on Facebook). I took all my ebooks down until they figure it out.
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I just thought of yet another possibility. Over the past year, Ingram dropped their fee for publishing books. That could have sent over a glut of new paperbacks/hardcovers that overwhelmed B&N from Ingram ??
That could have encouraged the low contents banned from Amazon to use them instead.
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There's more info in the Wide for the Win group on Facebook.
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There's more info in the Wide for the Win group on Facebook.
Not everyone has access to that. Or even wants to go there.
As someone exclusive to KU, I'm not even game to go in there.
I'm also suspicious of any group that needs to keep things secret within the group. That's what the mastermind groups in 2018 were doing before Amazon cracked down on their members.
Just saying.
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It's not secret, it's a closed group (like most groups on Facebook now) to prevent the constant spamming.
Anyone can join and many authors still have books in KU and other books/series are wide. If someone does not want to be on Facebook, that's their choice.
However, most if not all groups have rules asking that posts not be shared outside the group.
ETA: I'm not promoting one group over another, but in case anyone wants the link to see the B&N posts. https://www.facebook.com/groups/556186621558858
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However, most if not all groups have rules asking that posts not be shared outside the group.
When people are afraid to even paraphrase what got posted, that makes it secret in my book. We have a locked thread here to prove that.
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Isn't that my locked thread?
I don't take snippets from this forum and post elsewhere either. I encourage people to come here. :cheers
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I don't take snippets from this forum and post elsewhere either. I encourage people to come here. :cheers
Copy, no, not a good thing.
But you should be able to paraphrase and say "Over there they're saying ......."
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Since posts are the intellectual property of the poster, technically, you'd need the poster's consent to reproduce it elsewhere. However, that wouldn't prohibit someone from using a brief quote or paraphrasing a little of it. Nor would it prevent citing facts in it.
That said, I'm not concerned with FB groups that want to be private. If I got into one that was up to no good, I'd just leave. I think the purpose of such a privacy rule might be to encourage people to join the group. Why join if you can see everything without joining? I don't know if that's the reasoning, but if it is, it would make sense to me.
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Too many different stories and responses to paraphrase...but now they're saying paperbacks are coming back onto the B&N store.
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Too many different stories and responses to paraphrase...but now they're saying paperbacks are coming back onto the B&N store.
I checked mine this morning.
My paperbacks that were from CreateSpace days are back.
The ones that were KDP Print aren't.
Basically, it's all back to the way it was before this started.
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Some of mine are back. And I just received the following notice on B&N's Indie Press site:
"We are currently experiencing delays with printing and shipping POD books. Further updates to come as soon as we have more information.moreclose button"
B&N advised I contact Ingram on my email. Ingram said it's up to B&N what they sell, but it's still available for distribution to B&N.
So my contacts send me round and round :roll:
For now, patience appears to be the only way to know more.
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Mine are back, though in the weird selection from before. Some books are there, some aren't with no particular pattern. But that's exactly what was true before.
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Have you (or anyone) heard of any authors who are direct with BN having their books that are direct with BN removed?
I've been wondering this exact same thing too. A few years ago, Amazon started making my paperback's from Ingram unavailable. That's why I decided to publish my paperbacks through BOTH Amazon and Ingram. Is B&N doing this now to increase their royalty share? If so, I can publish through B&N. Wouldn't be a huge bother.
For those who don't know, B&N has been purposely taking down indies' books.
But is it certain that it's only Indie? I've seen publisher's books affected too.
I emailed B&N but got a robotic response. It asked me if I wanted to speak to real person. I said yes. I don't know if they'll respond. Unfortunately, B&N has never been easy to contact. But I'll let you all know if I hear anything further.
You're the first person I've seen that said they've heard complaints from authors with publishers. Are we talking about a big publisher or a small press because retailers treat small presses the same as they do indies? Small presses and indies don't get the same treatment as big press books, and small press books don't get anymore respect than indies. I would be highly surprised if B&N is out there yanking down Penguin Random House Books. I would eat my foot if that's the case because I highly doubt we will see that happen. But small presses, I wouldn't be shocked. They use POD and seems like unless you use Nook Press (because haven't seen any NP author complaining yet) your books might be yanked down. All the authors I've seen have just been indies.
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UPDATE! People are posting in the Wide For The Win Group that B&N is now backtracking big time. They responded to one author saying this was a technical error and they're not targeting indies or indie publishers, while another author got a response back that said the books were taken down for a variety of issues going on and B&N is "discussing" the situation further. What a load of bull. They think people are stupid? This wasn't not tech issue and they WERE targeting indies and indie pubs but then they started getting flooded with emails and contacted by writing organizations and now gonna backtrack. This is just like the erotica purge they did when they removed all the erotica from the store and thought they would get away with it until authors fought back and it turned into a huge media storm and B&N was accused of unfair censorship, etc.
No way this was a mistake. How does a technical glitch ONLY takes down indie books and then not even all of them? B&N had to be manually taken down these books. What, do they think we're idiots????
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We may never know exactly what happened. As this thread demonstrates, a lot of theories are possible, based on the available data.
I wish BN hadn't generated all this angst, but I'm also happy that its somewhat responsive to feedback. The situation shows that indies have some power (not as much as we'd like, but some).
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You're the first person I've seen that said they've heard complaints from authors with publishers. Are we talking about a big publisher or a small press because retailers treat small presses the same as they do indies?
Small press published writer lost one of their paperbacks--a friend of mine. But I thought I read earlier that ^^ a trad publisher was affected.
I'm glad some writers are getting their books back. 1/2 of mine are still gone.
The whole thing is weird if all the books just come back. If that happens, I'm thinking someone forgot their coffee and hit the wrong button or something. I don't see how B&N would not expect thousands of authors to not notice and get upset.
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The accident theory also may fit, although it sounds as if some authors might have gotten a different response when they asked early on (based on references to the FB group).
Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between BN trying to kill indies and BN making a mistake. Imagine BN getting hit with a huge wave of titles as a result of the Smashwords/D2D merger and/or spotting a large number of mediocre titles coming in. It may be a decision was made at a lower level, perhaps without full consideration of the effects. When all hell broke loose, upper management might have gotten more involved.
I'm sure there a lot of indie authors don't make BN much money. But there are certainly some that provide substantial extra income. Enlightened self interest would find a way to control the flow without cutting it off completely.
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What I saw on the Wide for the Win FB group was a claim by someone purporting to be employed by B&N saying that for a variety of reasons, B&N "cannot maintain availability" for all the print books on their site.
Excuse me, but WTF?
[I just erased a lot of sarcastic thoughts.]
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Maybe it wasn't an actual BN employee? I suppose it's possible BN sends agents out to join private FB groups, but that somehow seems unlikely.
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BN has posted a response. As it's an official corporate communication, I'll quote it in full below:
Hello!
I know there has been much frustration and confusion with the recently removed titles from bn.com. Please know this decision was made because, for a variety of reasons, Barnes & Noble cannot maintain availability for all books that are in print on our site.
And, consequently, we know many independent authors and publishers with print-on-demand titles were caught in this curation process.
As of today, many titles have already been reinstated and we expect more to return to sale by the end of the month.
If you would like immediate consideration, we encourage you to please reach out to [email protected] with a full list of your affected ISBNs.
B&N remains dedicated to supporting the indie author community and we appreciate your patience as we navigated the impacts of this issue and sorted out a fix.
So yes, they are curating the POD print catalog. They haven't shared any criteria for their curation at this point.
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If only they'd said that from the beginning--and not pulled everyone's books down, only to put them back up again.
I'm not impressed by the process, but I understand the desire to curate.