Missing paperbacks on B&N

[Lorri Moulton]

There's more info in the Wide for the Win group on Facebook.

[TimothyEllis]

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.

[Lorri Moulton]

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

[TimothyEllis]

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.

[Lorri Moulton]

Isn't that my locked thread?

I don't take snippets from this forum and post elsewhere either.  I encourage people to come here. 

[TimothyEllis]

I don't take snippets from this forum and post elsewhere either.  I encourage people to come here. 

Copy, no, not a good thing.

But you should be able to paraphrase and say "Over there they're saying ......."

[Bill Hiatt]

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.

[Lorri Moulton]

Too many different stories and responses to paraphrase...but now they're saying paperbacks are coming back onto the B&N store.

[Lynn]

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.

[alhawke]

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   
For now, patience appears to be the only way to know more.

[Bill Hiatt]

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.

[writeway]

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.

[writeway]

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????

[Bill Hiatt]

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).

[alhawke]

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.

[Bill Hiatt]

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.

[LilyBLily]

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.]

[Bill Hiatt]

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.

[Wonder]

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 publisherauthorinquiry@bn.com 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.

[Bill Hiatt]

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.