Oh, Nook, how we have loved you. We had such hopes that you and your parent, Barnes & Noble, would successfully challenge Amazon’s dominance of the e-reader market – thereby giving indie authors a home if (or when, as some muttered darkly) the Zon turned on us at last. You didn’t come through for us, but still we’ve had a soft spot in our hearts for you. After all, yours was the first e-reader platform, after KDP, to give indies a direct route into a store, first with PubIt and then with Nook Press (which turned out to be PubIt with a new skin, but never mind that). Sure, you didn’t offer us the kinds of promotional options KDP did – or any promotional options, actually – and it’s true that your venerable parent didn’t give us shelf space in its brick-and-mortar stores, nor did it play fair with sales rankings in its online store. But you gave us a home that wasn’t Amazon. You liked us! You really liked us! Continue reading “Whither the Nook?”
Tag: Barnes & Noble
NOOK Press for Print Books
This week, NOOK Press announced it would begin “publishing” print books.
There’s a reason why I put “publishing” in scare quotes. For indies, the news isn’t as big as one might think at first glance.
First, the good news: NOOK Press will indeed turn out a print book for you, in a variety of trim sizes and cover types – including hardback, which CreateSpace doesn’t offer.
NOOK Press also provides a handy-dandy formatting guide, which looked pretty comprehensive to me when I skimmed it: covering everything from headers and pagination, to what the heck front matter and back matter are, to how to size the spine. And it actually appears to be written in English, not typeset-ese, which I thought was a problem when I originally looked at Lulu’s directions.
Now, the bad news. And there’s a lot of it. Continue reading “NOOK Press for Print Books”