Barnes & Noble Press reaches Nook readers and bn.com, and a great many authors never publish there simply because they stopped after Amazon.
Barnes & Noble Press is the retailer's own self-publishing platform, covering the Nook ebook store and print titles sold through bn.com. Its audience is smaller than Amazon's and it is not the same audience, which is the whole argument for being on it.
Publishing there costs nothing but the work, and the work is the same kind as everywhere else: files to a specification, a listing that can be found, and pricing decisions made deliberately. Authors skip it because they are tired by the time they finish the first platform, not because it is not worth doing.
Available separately. If your book is already published elsewhere, you usually need only the first and the fourth.
- 01
Publication setup
Account creation, title details and file upload handled to the platform's requirements, so the listing goes live correctly rather than sitting in review.
- 02
Editing
The manuscript professionally edited before publication, worth doing once, properly, for every platform you intend to be on.
- 03
Cover design
A cover that works in the Nook store's grid and on bn.com, at the sizes each of them actually displays.
- 04
Marketing
Metadata, categories and description written for this platform's search rather than pasted from another one, plus the promotional options Barnes & Noble offers.
- 05
Print
Paperback set up alongside the ebook, with the interior and cover files built to the print specification.
Four things worth having when adding a second retail platform.
- 01
Platform-specific knowledge
The requirements here are not Amazon's, and files that passed there are regularly rejected here. Knowing the differences is most of the value.
- 02
Guidance, not handover
You are told what each decision means before it is made. The account and the royalties are yours, and you should understand the settings on them.
- 03
Transparent about money
Pricing and royalties explained plainly, including how they differ from what you are used to on other platforms.
- 04
Reachable
Clear communication throughout, and a person to ask when something on the listing looks wrong.
Eight steps, with a proof approved before publication.
Manuscript preparation
The manuscript refined and made ready for production, whatever state it arrives in.
Account setup
Your Barnes & Noble Press account created and configured in your name.
Book setup
Book information entered and manuscript and cover files uploaded to the platform's specification.
Distribution options
The formats and channels chosen (ebook, print, or both) and what each of them means for reach and for effort.
Pricing and royalties
Pricing set with you and the royalty implications explained, including how the bands differ from other platforms you may be on.
Proof
A proof reviewed and approved before anything is published, so print and formatting problems are caught while they are still free to fix.
Marketing and promotion
The listing prepared so it works from the day it goes live rather than being optimised weeks later.
Publish and monitor
The title published, and its sales monitored so you can see how this platform performs against the others you are on.
A few of the people the house has worked with, in their own words.
I had eleven years of notes and no book. What I got back read like me on a good day, my turns of phrase, my arguments, and none of the padding I would have added myself. The first chapter arrived and I stopped worrying.
Marianne ElleryIndependent author The structural edit was not comfortable reading. It told me the second half started in the wrong place, which I had suspected for a year and nobody had said out loud. Moving three chapters fixed a problem I had been trying to solve with better sentences.
Devon AlukoIndependent author What sold me was being told I did not need half of what I had asked for. I came in wanting the full package and left with a cover, a proofread and an honest explanation of why the rest would not have helped yet.
Priya RaghunathanIndependent author Three cover directions, all of them plausible, none of them the thing I had described. The one I picked worked at the size that actually matters, I could recognise it in a list of forty other books, which is more than I can say for my first attempt.
Tobias HearnIndependent author I own the book outright and that was written down before I paid anything. After two years of being quoted percentages by people who would not put them in writing, that was the whole reason I stayed.
Cecile MarchandIndependent author The audiobook took longer than I expected and they told me why each time rather than going quiet. The narrator they cast got my grandmother's accent right, which I had assumed would be the thing I had to let go of.
Nathan BoakyeIndependent author
How Barnes & Noble Press works for independent authors.
It is Barnes & Noble's own self-publishing platform. You create an account, upload your ebook or print files, set the details and pricing, and the title becomes available in the Nook store and on bn.com. As with the other retailer platforms, there is no acquisition process, anything meeting the content guidelines goes live.
No. You can publish here and on every other platform simultaneously, and most authors should. The one thing to watch is that if you have enrolled an ebook in Amazon's KDP Select, that programme requires digital exclusivity for its term, so the conflict comes from Amazon's side, not this one.
A readership that does not overlap much with Amazon's: Nook owners, and people who buy from bn.com out of preference. It is a smaller audience, and for that reason a less crowded one, a title can be visible in a category here that it would be invisible in elsewhere.
Publishing itself is free; Barnes & Noble takes its share from each sale. Ebook and print royalty rates are set by the platform and depend on list price and format, and they are not the same as Amazon's, so do not assume a price that works on one gives you the same return on the other. Check the current rates on Barnes & Noble Press before setting your price.
The platform runs its own merchandising and promotional programmes that self-published titles can be considered for, and the listing tools (description, categories, keywords) work the same way as anywhere else. Selection for featured placement is the retailer's decision, and no publisher or service can commit it on your behalf.
You do, completely. The author holds 100% of the rights to their work, in every format, for its whole life. The house is paid for the work it does, not with a share of the book. That is the arrangement the house reopened in 2008 to offer, and it does not change with the tier, the price or the point at which you come to us.
Yes. Your name is on the cover and in the record. Everyone who works on the book (writer, editor, designer) works on your book, and none of them is credited on it unless you ask for them to be.
Yes. Your story is yours, and nothing about the project leaves the house. We will sign your NDA before you send anything, or supply ours if you would rather use one.
No. Six disciplines are available and you take the ones you need. Authors arrive here at every stage (with an idea, a half-draft, or a finished manuscript that only needs a cover and a shelf) and the work starts where you actually are.
It depends on the work: length, how much research is involved, how much of the book already exists, and which disciplines you need. There is no list price for a book, and any firm who gives you one before reading your material is quoting something other than your book. Tell us where you are and we will price the actual job.
Move the marker. You do not need to know what to call it: you only need to know where you are.
Tell us where your manuscript is, where you want it to go, and we'll show you what's possible.