I’ve fired off another email to Barnes and Noble’s Pubit team today to ask when International authors will be able to join the ranks. I first emailed them last year, when the B&N Pubit scheme opened its doors and all non-US authors realised they were being excluded yet again. Back then, they told me that they planned to open the Pubit scheme to international authors and publishers in early 2011.
In January, I emailed them again to ask what was happening and whether we would be able to use the new publishing system soon. They gave me a stock reply telling me that international authors can use the system, as long as they have a US Credit Card, US Bank Account and US Address… erm, no, that’s totally impossible then, isn’t it? How many non-US authors can easily get a US Credit Card from OUTSIDE the country AND have a US address? Stupid. Baka!
Since then, I’ve noticed that they’ve had a lot of trouble with sales reporting and payments, etc. Maybe they’re waiting to smooth those things out before they tackle the daunting task of sending cheques to non-US publishers and authors. Hey, pay me via PayPal, it’s what Smashwords does and they’ve always been open to us internationals. Really, it’s not a problem. Actually, it’s better to pay me via PayPal because then I don’t incur transaction charges with my bank!
Still, I’ve emailed them again, hoping for a favourable reply and mentioning that all of us non-Pubit authors have noticed that they’re promoting / giving more exposure to books published with Pubit versus books published via other means on their site. We’re not blind.
I also mentioned to them that I’d probably be a better asset to them as a direct publisher in their Pubit scheme because I’m selling around 10000 ebooks a month on Amazon, and I reckon I could probably reach damn good figures on B&N too.
I’m open with my sales figures. Barnes and Noble have given me poor numbers so far. I publish with them via smashwords, so get crappy short descriptions (even with the new longer descriptions available, the main description is still that ridiculous 400 character rubbish. they just show the main description on the tabs, so it’s pointless really. the longer descriptions are having no effect since they’re not the primary description). In the time I’ve been with Barnes and Noble, say around 10 months, I’ve sold an appalling 550 books (yes, that’s still quite a few books, but it’s not good compared to other outlets).
I’ve been with Kobo and Sony around the same amount of time and sold twice that. Apple iBookstore for even shorter, and with no ability to promote my books with direct links to them in the iBookstore, and I’ve sold around five times that amount.
So, come along Barnes and Noble, isn’t it time you realised that there are a lot of non-US authors out there that could be bringing you in a lot of money a year? In the meantime, Amazon are making a small fortune from me, roughly $10000 a month in fact. Wouldn’t you like to make 10 grand a month from me, B&N?
🙂
