A QUICK SHOUT-OUT to the members of the Northwest Houston Chapter and the West Houston Chapter of RWA: Thanks, guys! Your encouragement and good wishes on this journey mean so much to me!
JUST A REMINDER: Over the next few posts, I'll be reviewing the some of the players in non-traditional book distribution. I DO NOT advocate any particular company. What you'll be reading is my thought process as I work through my decision-making. I can, and probably will, make a ton of mistakes. Your mileage may vary.
Barnes & Noble ("B&N") jumped on the e-reader train after Amazon, but I give them credit for bringing out the Nook. Obviously, Amazon is a little worried about the competition, or they wouldn't have dropped the price on the Kindle so fast. The nice thing about the Nook is availibility of a color edition for those who create picture books and graphic novels.
Unlike Borders, B&N took the coming e-book revolution seriously. They've started Pubit, their own indie-publishing branch. Once again, I strongly suggest you read B&N's terms THOROUGHLY!!
B&N will pay only 65% for e-books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, compared to Amazon's 70%. The plus with working with B&N is reaching another segment of your potential market. And it's still a hell of a lot better than 25% of net offered by the Big 6.
(Something I've noticed is the intense loyalty felt by the users of the various e-readers. Even if you'll only let go of your Sony if they pry it from your cold, dead fingers, don't discount the rest of the e-reader users in the world.)
B&N pays monthly, but they start paying sixty days after month's closing. For example, if you posted your e-book on February 1 and you sell 100 e-books in February, you''ll be paid for those 100 books on or about April 30.
B&N has a detailed and fairly clear formatting guide. And like Amazon, they will price match if you have your e-book for sale at lower price through another vender.
But there are some issues of concern. B&N won't make the monthly payment if less than $10 is due to the publisher. They insist on having your credit card on file. Say you sold 10 books in February, no books in March, but one of your books is returned in March. The 60% royalty from the return will be charged to your credit charge.
Other than those concerns, B&N is still the second biggest game in town with more pros than cons.
I'm really enjoying your posts and taking notes. This helps me out because (as you figured out) I'm not happy with my publisher and I really need to make up my mind on which direction I want to go. Thank you for sharing with us.
ReplyDeleteGald I can help. NY and trad publishing are an option now, but I can't see them lasting in the current form much longer. As Bob Mayer said in an earlier post comment they're scared and confused.
ReplyDeleteTo me, what's telling is the number of well-known agents changing what they do, from some leaving publishing all together to others becoming publishers themselves.
Great post!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tess! It's all a matter of doing your homework. Though this time I don't mind if folks copy off my paper. *grin*
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