Futurebook is carrying a brief piece by a British publisher pointing out that Barnes & Noble’s e-publishing system still has a major drawback that makes it less useful for publishers outside of the United States: it requires a U.S. bank account. This restriction is not exactly new—Diane Duane mentioned it in a post to her blog—but it is a bit surprising that Barnes & Noble still has it after all this time. Amazon certainly doesn’t. As the Futurebook piece points out, this makes Barnes & Noble’s neat new touch-sensitive Nook a lot less useful to British readers.
If Barnes & Noble wants to keep up with Amazon in the world of international e-books, perhaps the company should see about getting its act together.
“As the Futurebook piece points out, this makes Barnes & Noble’s neat new touch-sensitive Nook a lot less useful to British readers.”
The Nook is already worthless to British readers, since B&N doesn’t sell either the reader or books for it to anybody outside the US…
Hello, my name is Patricia Arancibia and I am in charge of International Content Acquisition at Barnes & Noble Digital. I wanted to respond to this blog posting as the information is incorrect and misleading, and provide you with the correct information.
Barnes & Noble works with publishers all over the world and we welcome content from these publishers in as many languages as available. Currently, we work with many British publishers and we look forward to working with even more of them as they make their titles available to us.
I also want to clarify when we require a US bank account. Authors are required to have a US bank account to sell titles in PubIt!, our self-publishing platform. Publishers are not required to have a US bank account to sign with us.
This is an exciting time in publishing for booksellers, publishers and authors. The digital world has allowed content to be made available to so many more readers who can now discover new authors and wonderful new titles. At Barnes & Noble we are happy to be a part of this. In fact, it was just last week at BEA I seat in a panel with German, Spanish, and Brazilian publishers talking about how well their content sells in Barnes & Noble. We look forward to these continued relationships and to developing many, many more.
PS: Maybe the next time it could be useful to check who come we have more international digital content than anybody in the United States before just spreading misunderstandings. Be well, Patricia
That seems more than a little unfair. This isn’t some baseless rumor I was spreading—this is an article published in a reputable e-book news publication, by a publisher who actually had the experience he was writing about—and who received no response when he tried to contact Barnes & Noble about it himself. Since you posted your comment over there as well, I guess he has received a response now—of sorts.
However, I see that you did not respond further (at least on that comment thread) when the publisher in question asked in response exactly how he was supposed to get past the space that specifically required he enter a U.S. bank account number—an account number that, per your response, he should supposedly not have to provide.
The substance of the original post, with the exception of a single word, is correct. Replace “publishers outside the United States” with “authors outside the United States,” and the revised post accurately highlights B&N’s slowness in addressing the growing international self-publishing market.
Patricia – With small publishers becoming the bulk of new business, it might be a good move to make it easier for them to place their work with you through PubIt?! To say nothing of making it easier (possible?) for international purchasers to buy from B&N. It’s not that I like boycotting B&N, I just can’t do business with you… And it’s you, not me 🙁
Patricia-I can only agree with what Phil says. My publishing company (from Germany) is one of the biggest on the Amazon KDP platform with some 4.500+ English and German titles (split roughly 50/50 language-wise). For around twelve months now I was trying to get in contact to B&N to spread my content for the Nook but to no avail. I really thought it was Aprils Fools Days today when I read your post. No offense but my conclusion at this point is either a) you should fire the guys that do the legal stuff and Ts&Cs on your website or b) make your points from above so clear that a major publishing company from overseas can distinguish itself from a self-publishing author or c) read your email – in my case I tried twice to get in contact to your company to clarify this “I am from Germany and can’t get a US bank account and still want to business with you” stuff or d) any combination of a), b) and c). No offense, absolutely no way and I am glad you replied to what Chris Meadows said, but you know, your words make me feel like having lost a few 10.000 bucks in the last couple of months just because your company has lousy (sorry) Ts&Cs. And, obviously; I am not the only one feeling like this. Again, no offense meant, and still hoping that we can do business NOW.
So, does PayPal, an eBay subsidiary that happens to be a US bank, count or is B&N simply completely blind to the damage it is doing to itself by ignoring the ever growing self-publishing sector? Publishing houses are doing themselves a great injustice by ignoring these talented authors.
Sure, there is crap being self-published, but SURPRISE, there is a TON of crap being published by these lumbering behemoths.
And don’t get me started on their questionable accounting methods and universal disdain for any author asking for an independent audit of their royalties accounts.
Chris, thanks for your follow-up, would be great if you could track that topic further on this blog. I am not from the UK (from Germany) but have exactly the same problems as you can see on my first post to this thread.
Chris, I was busy working. I responded now the the follow-up question now, on Sat morning. Not running not respond to a post doesn’t make me or the company I work for less responsible or serious. Instead of writing a diatribe about how hard-working people should be really working, based on an unsigned post, you could contact us and ask, right? Here is a great BEA wrap published by The Bookseller the same day that that post. It mentions our intl business: Big ideas, B&N and global brands: http://t.co/nrLybew
Jezzybee, we work with hundreds of German publishers. All of them very happy. You are more than welcome to become one of them. The text that you are quoting belongs to the instructions to use PubIt!, our self-publishing platform. You can only get there by going to PubIt! : Get Started http://pubit.barnesandnoble.com/pubit_app/bn?t=support As I wrote before, PubIt! is not the place for internatiomal.
The way we work with non-US publishers from all over the world is by signing contracts to establish partnerships. We have not kept this a secret. We are permanently travelling, talking in conferences, in skype, in the phone. We have signed many contracts in every time zone.
Phil, while I do not disagree with you and I appreciate your interest, Barnes & Noble sells only in the United States.
Jazzybee, since I don’t know your name or that of you company, I cannot recall you contacting me or our department. If you did and we failed to get back to you, I do apologize. It would rather be an exception. Maybe you tried PubIt! which is an automated system, and it did not work for you and you kept trying there. I am sorry that you had a bad experience, but that is not how we treat non US publishers. Please, contact me via LinkedIn or Twitter (@queridapatricia), ask your colleagues for my email, and I’ll be happy to help you. I am flying to a business trip and a conference in continental Europe in a couple of hours, so I may not be able to send you a contract before June 13, but certainly after that.
Working with so many people from different cultural and geographic perspectives, I misunderstandings and confusions are often going to happen. You can react to that with anger or respond with kindness. The latter tends to build bridges, make friends, open minds, and be fun. Not so much the former.
Have a great week,
P
Patricia: Fair enough—I apologize for misjudging your intentions. (I would respectfully point out, however, that that post was not “unsigned”—it was signed “steveemecz”, and googling that name leads to the fact that Mr. Emecz is the Managing Director at MX Publishing, among other posts.)
My previous experience trying to get any useful contact out of a Barnes & Noble representative did not turn out very well—I was essentially ignored for several months, and then told to bug off. So I suppose I was predisposed to assume the worst.
In that light, it looked as if you were simply going to tell him that he could publish through Barnes & Noble without actually explaining how. I’m gratified to see that is not the case after all.
My ebooks are no DRM. I am not getting US sales on BN. I emailed the proper department and heard nothing as to why they only make no DRM ebooks available in the US only. Barnes will be left out of the international ebook business if they don’t change. They are trying to keep prices up, and that won’t work in a competitive worldwide market.
I hope they do get going worldwide.
Ms Arancibia seems intent on emphasizing that PubIt! is not for international self-publishers. Yet PubIt! is part of the B&N conglomerate. So, if B&N were truly ameanable to carrying international self-published works, then it stands to reason they would have an international PubIt! substitute. At that time, perhaps they will begin to look more like Amazon and less like Borders.
There are high profile authors out there self-publishing and preaching the end of the publishing business as we know it. Perhaps Ms Arancibia shoudl visit Dean Wesley Smith’s website and read up on “Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing” and “The New World of Publishing”. Or perhaps Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s “The Business Rusch”. Quite possibly, if she were to spend just a few moments on Kindle Boards, she would find the amount of vitrial authors feel for the stranglehold the publishing business has on new authors, including the booksellers and how they resemble the coke-whores jonesing for the dope peddled by those publishers.
I stand on the outside looking in. I am a reader, not an author. And I am disgusted by it all.
And don’t get me started on Google!
Seems that B&N are spending more time arguing over semantics than actually providing value – across all their subsidiaries – for international publishers. Their loss.
@Patricia, thanks for your clarifiying words and looking forward to doing business with B&N. I tried to get you on LinkedIn but your InMail is deactivated and Twitter does not allow me to send you messages as long as you don’t follow me (@jazzybeepublish). Maybe you can add me there or connect via Facebook (Jazzybee Publishing). So slow the start, the better the future business;-) Enjoy your trip to the Old World.
Have you tried calling Publisher Services directly? Their phone number is on the B&N website.
Dear Patricia
Loyalty to the company by whom one is employed is understandable. Ostrich-like behaviour that actually harms that companies reputation is not. If the responses and concerns on this thread aren’t enough to tell you B&N has a publishing model that is confusing many and losing the company business then one one wonders exactly what will release the penny for you. Having published over 150 books with Amazon with incredible ease in comparison to my fruitless attempts to do the same with B&N – either as publisher or self-publisher – I can only say that your responses seem like damage limitation rather than a recognition of a real and debilitating problem the company employing you suffers under. And suffers under unnecessarily.
Regards and the hope B&N are savvy enough (the Internet is full of similar confused threads) to simplify their current procedures after the example of Amazon.
FDEDITOR.