B&N Announces PubIt! self-publishing platform

[KarlB]

I just converted one of my self-published Kindle books and put it on B&N via PubIt. (Question: Does 'PubIt' rhyme with 'pubic'? :-)

The process of publishing through PubIt is about as easy as Amazon's DTP platform for Kindle publishers. Where it's really lacking now is in technical support. Amazon's DTP has a big support (aka "Community") section, with forums where questions are answered by an Amazon tech person and a dtp-support email address for self-publishing problems and questions.

For PubIt, there's a pretty meager FAQ, and that's all. (And the FAQ has darned annoying "expansion triangles" that don't do anything; you have to click on the text of the question to expand it.)

It will be interesting to see how things develop.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by KarlB

I just converted one of my self-published Kindle books and put it on B&N via PubIt. (Question: Does 'PubIt' rhyme with 'pubic'? :-) ...

It might. Nook e-books rhymes with, well...

[Fabe]

Unsuccessful publishing experience with first PubIt book.

1. When adding new title, Preview runs and runs and never previews.
2. "Is ebook part of series?" question never accepts "No."
3. "Categories" never indicates if category is accepted.
4. No way to delete duplicate title.
5. No response from pubit@bn.com.
6. Thumbnail shows in Foxfire, not in Safari.

This ePub book was successfully added to the Apple iBookstore.

- Fabe

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Update: #s 2, 3, & 6 are resolved. They just work. I am now uploading the book and will report back. -F

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Update 2: status = processing.

[delphidb96]

MuGAWD! At least two people have managed to get into PubIt! and get it to work! Happy Days!

Me, I'm still having problems getting past the Login/Please SignUp loop.

[Elfwreck]

The content policy says, "You are responsible for checking for updates and your continued use of the service after we post amendments will constitute your acceptance of the changes..."

This is not valid in CA; there was a big lawsuit a few years back, and it was decided that "we can update our website at will" is not considered acceptable terms for a contract; users have to be notified of changes. They are not in violation of a contract they haven't agreed to. (That said, since most of the content rules seem to be "you can't post this or that," and other parts of it say "we can remove your content at any time for no reason," there wouldn't be much to fall back on if they changed the rules and your book got pulled.)

If, for example, they change the percentage rates, people could sue to receive payment under the terms they signed up for, not the ones they were switched to without notification. (If their FW pattern continues, they'd quietly pay off anyone who complains and hope that's few enough people to not be worth notifying anyone.)

Descriptions of ebooks are not allowed to include:

* Hyperlinks of any kind, including email addresses.
* Request for action (i.e.: "If you like this book, please write me a review.").
* Advertisements or promotional material (including author events, seminars, etc.).
* Contact information for the author or publisher.

Wow, they *really* don't want people to use BN as a contact point. They want to be the book provider; they want to discourage shopping elsewhere.

And...

Barnes & Noble will provide refunds to customers who are unsatisfied with their eBook purchases. Returns will appear on your My Sales report and will be deducted from your next payment.

Gee, that's nice of them, considering how solidly they REFUSE to refund sales from their main bookstore, including outright fraudulent ones, where they advertise one book and deliver another.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Descriptions of ebooks are not allowed to include:

Wow, they *really* don't want people to use BN as a contact point. They want to be the book provider; they want to discourage shopping elsewhere.

Fortunately, you can include any of that in the book itself.

I tried uploading a book this morning... the Denial of Service stories. The process was just a bit buggy, and I had to edit the Word file a few times to get the ePub to come out right upon upload. I discovered you cannot submit a book into their site for free sales... they must be at least .99 cents. I did like the fact that you can download the ePub file and examine it closely (the preview on the PubIt! site isn't an actual view of the file on a Nook, just a sort of snapshot of a page, and I don't know how it's generated, so I don't know how accurate it is).

It is now "processing." I have no idea how long that will be, but it's been "processing" for at least a few hours, now. I won't try anything else until that process is over, and I see the next step.

[Fabe]

Originally Posted by Fabe

Unsuccessful publishing experience with first PubIt book.

1. When adding new title, Preview runs and runs and never previews.
2. "Is ebook part of series?" question never accepts "No."
3. "Categories" never indicates if category is accepted.
4. No way to delete duplicate title.
5. No response from pubit@bn.com.
6. Thumbnail shows in Foxfire, not in Safari.

This ePub book was successfully added to the Apple iBookstore.
-------------
Update: #s 2, 3, & 6 are resolved. They just work. I am now uploading the book and will report back.
-------------
Update 2: status = processing.

My ePub book is now available on Barnes & Noble's web site. Despite the initial hassle, this all was done in one afternoon. The cover image did not show up, but I'll give it some time.

Go take a look. The book is called: The Ultimate Bob Dylan Quiz. I guarantee it will delay the onset of Alzheimer's by at least one year. Tell your friends!

- Fabe

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fabe

Go take a look. The book is called: The Ultimate Bob Dylan Quiz. I guarantee it will delay the onset of Alzheimer's by at least one year. Tell your friends!

- Fabe

Are you able to add to or edit the synopsis after upload?

Only 63K ... is that accurate?

[Fabe]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Are you able to add to or edit the synopsis after upload? Only 63K ... is that accurate?

Great question, thanks. I will go download it, make a comparison and report back...

-----------

Okay, here's what I discovered. The original ePub file is 64 KB. The cover, which is not yet showing is 178 KB.

I tried editing one detail to no avail. I could not save the change. - Fabe

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Follow-up: The processing finally finished, and the book went on-sale (and I immediately took it off, because I'll be offering it for free on my site).

I will make another attempt, this time with a book I plan to leave up: the first Kestral book, which I have renamed (more on that at another time). But so far, so good.

[jaxx6166]

Keep us updated Steve. I'd really like to know about the "Lend Me" and read in store features, if they even exist and/or work for the indies.

Read their pricing policy, it appears they're taking an opposite stance to Amazon's "We must be the cheapest" policy.

B/N says they're not allowed to be HIGHER than any other e-tailer. Interesting..

Definitely not a fan of their draconian language about accepting new terms/conditions.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I went back in this morning to upload The Kestral Files: My Life, After Berserker. (Before I did that, I also uploaded it to Amazon. Neither are for sale yet.)

B&N allowed me to choose a number of formats to upload, and as I'd already custom-created an epub file in Sigil, I used that. Adding the rest of the information (including opting-out of DRM) was easy enough, and the system didn't give me any trouble. I was able to save the info, go back in and edit a few areas, and resave it, no problem. So they've gotten most of the bugs out of the process so far.

It is presently on hold in their system, not put on-sale yet. (I'm trying to get the external sales to roughly coincide with my new website, which isn't active yet.)

Overall, I'd say the process was as easy as Amazon's DTP (which has been redesigned from its old layout, and the two systems are very similar). B&N's royalty being 65%, it is 10% lower than Amazon's... Amazon also states they will drop royalties to 70% if they are forced to drop their price to match a lower competitor, so either way, Amazon is the better deal for authors.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

This weekend I put Verdant Skies and Kestral for sale. Process took 2 days to appear. When it did, I realized that neither of my covers appear on the product page.

B&N was fairly specific about what was acceptable, a jpg, between 300 and 6500pixels in length, between 20KB and 5MB (or so)... my covers fit all of those criteria. So as far as I can tell, there's no reason they wouldn't display.

B&N support, being what they are (sorry), is no help... in fact, they seem to be MIA. Even links to the PubIt! Help board, apparently populated by authors only, are hard to find, and I have yet to see signs of any B&N personnel on them.

It does seem from the B&N discussion board there are a number of complaints about missing covers, so this is not just my problem. Moreover, I remember this being a problem with B&N's previous publishing system, before they uprooted it and replaced it with PubIt! So we're talking about a problem that hasn't been fixed in over a year...

[Gus Flory]

I got my email from B&N a couple weeks ago but procrastinated on uploading my books until yesterday.

Yesterday afternoon I set up my account and uploaded my two books as HTML files. It took me a little while to get them to look right in the Nook preview. I downloaded the converted EPUB files from PubIt onto my desktop and then fumbled around in Calibre until finally getting the formatting to look the way I wanted.

(I had first tried uploading my books as PDFs but the formatting was a mess in the Nook preview so that was a no go.)

I put both books up for sale and B&N said they would be available in 24 to 72 hours. When I logged in this morning, they were already on sale. The book covers are not on my product pages yet and I have no sales of course.

I would say getting everything ready to go took me less than two hours, and this with my 3-year-old daughter sitting on my lap while talking to my wife with my 1-year-old son pulling on my leg and being in a rush before leaving for a pumpkin patch.

Very similiar to Amazon's DTP, and I have lots of experience there, which probably made PubIt easier for someone like me with basic computer skills.

I have a Kindle 3 at home (My Precious), so I don't know how my books look on the Nook. I will head over to our local B&N and take a look this evening.

Overall, my experience with Amazon DTP and now PubIt has been very positive. My experience with traditional publishing -- not so much.

This is a great time for writers, I think. And now that I have a Kindle 3, I'm realizing what a great time it is for people like me that always need to have a book to read. My Kindle is with me everywhere I go and I'm plowing through books like nobody's business, quite a few of which are public domain that I've always been meaning to read but never got a hold of.

I'm making a couple hundred bucks a month from Amazon off my two novels, and this long after giving up my dreams of being a famous traditionally-published multi-millionaire best-selling author.

We'll see what happens with Pubit.

Here are the links to my new B&N pages:

GALAXY OF HEROES

THE PSYCHIC

[Gus Flory]

Covers are now up.