Nook Rebranding

I have one book for direct distribution via Nook Press (my Bodrum Peninsula Travel Guide) so I was interested to read about the branding of Nook Press to Barnes and Noble Press. Here’s the information about this topic from the B&N website:

It’s a new year and a new look for us. We’ve undergone some major renovations and combined and unified our eBook and print platforms under our new brand: Barnes & Noble Press™. Closely aligned with our national retail stores, Barnes & Noble Press is a free, fast, and easy way to publish your books and reach millions of B&N readers. More Info on Barnes & Noble

Here’s what’s new:

• Improved user experience and new visual design
• Rebrand to Barnes & Noble Press to reflect our close alignment with Barnes & Noble retail stores
• Sign in to a single website to create and manage print and eBooks all in one place
• 12 month pre-order capability for all authors for all eBooks
• Increased royalty rate of 65% for eBooks priced $10.00+
• Additional print book trim sizes, glossy covers and color printing options now available
• Combine different personal print book orders in a single checkout order
• Discounting on the first 10 personal copies ordered of each print book title
• Different formats of the same book title are grouped together for easy project managing, metadata cloned from one project format to the next
• Author Tools & Tips page complete with trusted 3rd party partner offers
• Build-a-Book user experience enhancements
• Select subject categories for your print and eBook that more closely match those on BN.com

Accessing your old Nook Account

I just tried logging onto my old Nook Press account and was redirected to their new Barnes & Noble Press page at: https://press.barnesandnoble.com/

My login and password details remain the same and so are my book and publisher details, so it looks like a smooth transition to their new rebranded site.

If you have books on the old Nook Press – head on over to the new Barnes & Noble Press and check out your new publishers account.

Direct or via Distributors

When I launched my first travel guide in 2013 I went direct with Amazon KDP and Nook Press, and used Smashwords as my distributor for the retailers they supply too.

I was planning on go direct with iBooks as well – but Apple didn’t make it easy to self-publish so I distributed to iBooks via Smashwords. One of the requirements for iBooks is that you have to have a Mac (which I do), but the user interface for their publishing platform wasn’t very intuitive – so I gave up!

There are so many combinations for how authors can go direct or sell via established distribution networks, and it is so easy to get confused. Add to that the element of continuous change, and it’s no wonder authors get overwhelmed with the decisions they need to make.

iBooks rebranded to Apple Books

Talking of change – I also saw that iBooks is rebranding themselves as Apple Books – I wonder if their self-publishing platform is easier to use. It’s 4 years since I last looked into going direct with Apple, so maybe it’s time to take another look at them.

The benefit of going direct is that you have the opportunity of getting a higher royalty rate. But it means you have multiple publishing accounts to manage. So if you want to keep things simple you should centralize you distribution through a distributor like Draft2Digital, Publish Drive, or Smashwords. If you’d like to make a little extra cash – go direct with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iBooks, and choose a distributor to reach the rest of the retailers.

Do you publish direct with Barnes & Noble or do you use a distributor?