OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
Barnes & Noble has been a well-known US book brand for many years, and the Nook has consistently been one of the top ebook retailers alongside Amazon, Apple and Kobo in the US.
But as soon as they opened up to UK authors, I jumped into NookPress and published all my books directly. In this post, I outline my experience with NookPress as well as things I have discovered about Nook marketing, plus, there's a 25 min interview I did with Colin Eustace, General Manager of B&n Nook Europe with his thoughts.
Self-Publishing on NookPress Directly
I now publish direct on Amazon KDP, Kobo Writing Life, iTunes Connect for iBooks and NookPress. The sites all have their idiosyncrasies, with some good and some difficult parts. Here are my thoughts on NookPress:
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Nookpress Project screen with drilldown per book NookPress is currently open to authors residing in USA, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands and Belgium. You can also publish in French, Italian, German, Spanish and Dutch as well as English and be paid in your local currency.
- The platform is easy to use, with the same type of interface as KDP and Kobo. It has an overview screen, drilldown into each book for changes and a sales reporting screen with monthly downloads.
- It requires ePub format for upload, but I have found that the same files that load perfectly well on iBooks and Kobo have a lot of errors on Nookpress. I ended up paying for my files to be fixed up, because I have no patience with formatting! Read the guidelines if you want to do it yourself.
- A great feature is that you can make a change to the file within Nookpress without loading a new file. This is useful if you just want to alter back matter e.g. add in links to new titles.
- After you have loaded the book, I've found that the Preview screen might not reflect what an ePub viewed on another device might look like. An improvement suggestion is for Nook to do the same as Amazon and have Previews by device so we can see what the book will look like on a Nook phone app, versus a tablet.
- You don't need an ISBN to publish on Nook but you can optionally add one
- You can choose up to 5 categories directly, which can only be done with keyword optimization on Amazon, otherwise you only get the usual two.
- You can list prices in USD, EUR and GBP. It would be great for this to be expanded as the markets are.
The actual Nook retail site has some of the same bugs as Kobo, in that if you click on an author name you get a lot of extraneous random books. Something like Amazon Author Central would be great to group them together. The review functionality is also missing, so it's hard for customers to tell what's good unless the book has been picked for merchandizing. But overall, it's easy enough to use and the result of publishing direct is increased control, speed of changes and direct royalty payments.
Interview with Colin Eustace, General Manager of Barnes & Noble Nook Europe
I had a conference call with Colin Eustace and asked him a few questions about Nook and how indie authors especially can optimize their use of the platform. It was great to hear him talk so enthusiastically about the importance of NookPress and the company's future plans for expansion globally. Colin talked about the partnership with Microsoft being important for the cellphone and tablet market, and despite the negative press we hear from the US, it seems that the view from Luxembourg is rosy!
This was an audio only interview, so you can listen below, or download an mp3 file here.
Tips for marketing to Nook customers
I have been searching for that elusive tip that help rocket my sales at Nook. But, like any book marketing, there is no magic bullet! The same
Beyond that, remember:
- Link to your book on Nook. Make sure your website is linking to the sales pages at Nook as well as Amazon. If you tweet book links, use Nook sometimes and not just Amazon all the time. (You know you're guilty of that!)
- Make your book attractive to Nook merchandisers by using a professional cover, appropriate pricing and, as on other stores, the more books you have and the more popular they are, the more likely you will get noticed.
- Use the Nook pricing options if you do paid promotions, like BookBub. You can just tick the box for Nook and then update your price. It's pretty quick to get price changes through.
- Network with Nook employees at conventions and book fairs. Humanizing the people behind the store can often be a way to become more positive about your chances to sell more books on a particular platform. You might have a chance for a merchandizing opportunity too, but please be professional in any approach. Don't just try to sell your book. Be a human and network with authenticity. I recommend the tips in the great book, “Opening up to Indie Authors” by the Alliance of Independent Authors for anyone trying to expand their reach into stores as well as libraries and more.
What's your experience been publishing with Nookpress? Do you have any tips for growing the Nook reader base? Do you know any specific advertising or review sites for Nook? Please leave your comments below.
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1 2 Next »Thanks for this, Joanna. I've been selling to Nook through Smashwords for a couple of years and while sales have improved over time, you do feel a little removed from it. I didn't know they'd enabled sales for UK authors so I'll be heading over there pronto. One question - was there a time-lag between uploading your books to NookBook and seeing them on the store, as with Smashwords? Or is it pretty instantaneous, as with Kobo Writing Life?
Hi Keith, there is a time lag but it is less than Smashwords, and more than Kindle :) Kobo varies greatly depending on volume in their system and time of day, I find. But overall, the rule is that direct is faster and gives more control. You also get a few more categories on Nook :)
Hi Joanna. As I said on twitter, the disappointing thing about NookPress is that there are very few territory options. So for example as a UK author you can't choose to publish only in North America. This is unlike all the other self publishing platforms. For me, who sold my UK rights, it means a no-go - even though I'd love to publish on Nook as my sales through smashwords were decent. I did speak to someone at LBF about this but if you get another chance to engage with the top people then do pass on the feedback! Cheers. Paul
Hi Paul, Thanks - and I will pass this on :) I'm sure things like this will iron out over time - remember that we're still in the toddling stage of indie right now ...
I recently added a title to NookPress for the first time, and found it overall easy to work with. I'm going to avoid doing any editing of an epub file after uploading though; I generate epub-validated files from Scrivener, and had no troubles at all except if loading, editing, then viewing/downloading in Nook.
A query to their customer service said I could just use the file as uploaded, and then all was fine.
Definitely like the overall interface and options. The title was up on the BN within 24 hours if I remember correctly.
I've got another title on BN through Smashwords right now, but soon I'm going to move that one direct too. I agree, Joanna—if I can go direct, I'm going to go direct. I like having the faster updates and direct control.
Thanks Joanna, it's great to have more options. While I love Amazon with all their flaws, and they are the biggest game in town, I don't want them to become the ONLY game in town. That's a dangerous path.
Now I just need to wait for it to become available to Australians, as I see Australia is not in that list... (another piece of feedback for you to pass on!) :-)
I finally started to write something besides my "usual" stuff lol. Upon writing The Nine Of Hearts, I figured that instead of doing JUST Amazon, I would go all the way and use a variety of sites. Amazon is easy. Of course, I think I have become a pro at that. Kobo was a little difficult, my epub was not "formatting" correctly for some reason, even though it was professionally done. iTunes, I need to find someone with a MAC.
Now Nook, I was really excited about this one! However! Once I put the book on the account (which was easy by the way), I ran into quite a few snags. First off, support sucks. I am not the only one that thinks so either. If you check out the forums, many people complain about the support.
The other issue I ran into was the "error" I kept receiving. I was told 3 weeks ago they were working on it. My book which had a green "button" next to it, then had a gray processing button next to it. But, when I checked the other day, it went back to a green button again. I tried putting it for sale again and error again. When I contacted them again the second time I was given yet another canned response that they were working on it.
Unfortunately it's been about 5 days and I have not heard anything more from support and my book is still not uploaded. I almost feel like deleting my account and just saying screw it, but it's BN for god sake. I really want my book on that site! So for now I have sort of just forgotten about it. If it happens, great. If not, oh well.
It is really true that NookPress platform is very easy to use. I have uploaded several books of our clients and thank God we do not encounter issues with our epub files.
I wish that Nook offered more marketing opportunities for indies - posting about free or discounted NookBooks.
Thanks for writing this article, Joanna. Interesting comments about metadata, both from you and from Colin. The problem is: which metadata? It's a vague, voodoo kind of word that's like chanting over your listing, so saying we need to do good metadata is not very helpful. Amazon actually has a list of good keywords for the romance, fantasy/sci-fi and mystery/suspense/thrillers categories. I went into my books and added all keywords that applied and I do think it has boosted my sales (direct correlation is hard to prove). How one could find the right keywords for other platforms is beyond my grasp. Do you have suggestions?
Hi Connie, I just use the same metadata - including keywords - as I do on Amazon, and hope that these sites use similar search mechanisms!
Hi Jo - interesting to hear about the ePub formatting problems at upload. At LBF14 I chatted with Nook about by new graphic novel, Henry Haynes and the Great Escape and they were confident I'd be able to upload it - complete with embedded graphics from a Word document and their back end would do the rest for me. I must say I found that very hard to believe! It's on my list to put this to the test, but reading above I'm sure it ain't gonna work if you had problems uploading ePubs ! Still, I'll think positively until I've tried! I'll let you know how I get on. I have the other two ebooks in KDP select still as the sales on the other platforms are so tiny and after I dropped out of KDP last time I noticed my overall Amazon sales drop back. But as Henry as new I'm happy to experiment with other platforms if it's not too onersous to get an illustrated book up there. K
Hi Karen, I think the "sales on other platforms are so tiny" effect is partly because most of us have focused on Amazon. I think by spreading the focus and tending the other parts of the garden (to use Konrath's analogy), we can grow things there too.
I hope the ePub works out :)
Hi Joanna,
You've touched on a subject that I'm trying to sort out: Getting files perfected so they will read well on any device for each e-book seller. I would like to deal direct without getting too technical (after validating the epub), and not have to buy an i-mac and one of each device to test on.
You said you have a subcontractor who does this, and I'd like to find one that is thorough and reliable. I live in Fla. U.S.A. Any suggestions? About what does this cost? Thanks!
Hi Dave, I'm using Jason http://www.polgarusstudio.com/
Great service :)