How to sell self published books at barnes and noble
How do I get Barnes & Noble to sell my book? | Self-Publishing with Barnes & Noble | B&N Press
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so how can i a self-published author get
my books into the big mac daddy barnes
and noble
stay tuned
hi i'm mk williams i'm an author and
independent publisher
i love sharing my insights about all
things self-publishing with you
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topic don't forget to hit subscribe
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making a career out of being an author
and now being a mompreneur so for so
many of us who grew up in the united
states and dreamed of being an
author the idea of getting your book
into barnes and noble is like the dream
right
um so i've talked to this channel before
about getting into local independently
owned bookstores
but for so many of us the like the gold
standard growing up at least
was barnes noble and of course now that
gold standard is amazon
but i think there's still something
about the idea of like seeing your
book in a barnes and noble um or saying
oh my book's available through barnes
and noble that still
has that extra level of prestige for
authors like we understand the realities
of needing to be on amazon
but so many of us still want barnes and
noble
so today i'm going to be telling you how
to do that now before we dive in i want
to give a shout out to
my new book going wide self-publishing
your books outside the amazon ecosystem
this is my latest book in the author
your ambition series where we talk
about each of these elements and
strategies that i'm going to be going
over in today's video
in depth you can get your copy now
everywhere books are sold
and yes even barnes and noble so before
i go into how you can get your book on
the barnes noble website or even into
their stores
i want to tell you the ways you cannot
get your book there
through amazon there is no reality that
exists
anywhere in the multiverse where you
being self-published through amazon
will ever get your book into barnes and
noble on their website
it won't happen not with amazon expanded
distribution
definitely not through kindle select
it's never gonna
happen okay so if you want your book in
barnes noble you have to publish wide
you cannot be amazon only
okay so now we're going to talk about
the ways that you can get into barnes
noble
okay so first and foremost is going
direct with barnes and noble press
so this is for e-book and
print-on-demand paperbacks on hardcover
books you can self-publish
directly through barnes noble press and
then your books are listed on the barnes
noble website
the platform is relatively new um
i i would say it's about like maybe a
year or so old that i've been like
hearing about it
i've been able to get my books onto the
barnes noble website through
aggregators that i've been using for
years so when barnes and noble announced
this platform i didn't jump on it
because i didn't want duplicate listings
i've heard that there's been some
customer service issues to be worked out
too
but if you are just starting on your
self-publishing journey this is a really
great option to get your ebook and print
books
on the barnes noble website directly
i get my ebooks on their site through
smashwords and my print books through
ingram spark
other aggregators like draft2digital and
lulu and
pretty much all the other aggregators
can get your books there as well
now you'll notice so far i haven't
discussed audio books
well the main way to get your audiobook
onto the nook audio website is through
an audiobook aggregator
like find a way voices so to recap
you can self-publish your book directly
with barnes noble press
or through any number of aggregators um
so for ebooks that would be barnes noble
press
aggregators like smashwords drafted
digital or lulu
for print that would be barnes noble
press or aggregators like
ingramspark or lulu audiobooks it would
be an aggregator like find a way voices
okay so that's how to get onto the
barnes noble website now to get into the
barnes and noble
store that's a whole other strategy so
that's probably the real reason you're
here right you want to see your book in
the barnes and noble
store so how do you get onto the shelves
at barnes noble
what we're going to talk about first is
your retail strategy
then we'll look at your local barnes and
noble store and then the corporate
entity barnes and noble and their
subsidiaries um
that are all over the country the first
thing we need to go over is your retail
strategy now i've talked in the past
about getting my own books into local
indie bookstores
before but the main elements are also
going to apply here
you have to think about what that
bookstore wants money
it's simple you need to make it easy for
them to make money off your book
or cut their losses if it doesn't sell
that means you need to offer a
competitive wholesale discount
and allow the store to return any excess
books that aren't moving so enter
ingramspark you can set both your
wholesale discount to 55
which is what they want and allow
returns on your book through the
ingramspark platform
you'll also want to make sure you have a
promotional marketing plan
and get creative suggesting ways you can
drive more traffic to
that store and what i mean by that is
you need to be able to show them like
you can sell books you have an audience
and think of ways that you can get
people to want to come into the store
to buy your book and hopefully some
other things while they're there
so for your local barnes and noble i
would suggest going in and talking to
someone
explain that you're a local author your
book is on the barnes noble website
and ask if the store could also stock
the book ask about ways that you can
help to drive people to the store like a
reading or a signing event
remember barnes noble really really
wants people in their stores
they've been struggling for years and
they've had to shut down branches
and that was before 2020 which was not
kind to them
if you want to be in their store you
need to show that you can solve this
problem
for them again do not under any
circumstances
mention amazon don't do it they don't
care that your book is for sale on
amazon
they hate amazon don't bring it up
don't do it when the clerk at your local
store
looks up the isbn they will see that
it's available through the ingram
database through ingramspark
and that it has the discount they want
and that it's returnable those are
really important to them so check check
check
this makes the conversation a lot easier
if they are busy or the person who
approves these items isn't in the store
at the moment
they may direct you to an email address
to send those details to so they can
decide on the order okay so that's the
main ways to do that
obviously you want to be personable you
want to be polite you want to make it
easy to get along with don't be that
super artistic you know diva author who
comes in like
what do you mean you don't have my book
like that you're not making it easier
for them to want to work with you
okay so definitely keep that in mind
that you want to develop a good
partnership there
now with the success of selling your
book at your local barnes noble
and your sales data on your previous
books or the current book you're trying
to sell
you're ready to apply to the barnes
noble corporate to see if they'll pick
up your book
now they have a set application process
it's changed a bit over the past two
years so the first time i went through
the process was very different than the
second
so i'm not going to go into detail of
like what the actual form is i have a
link to the form below the form has
changed
but in general what you want to do is
you want to make sure you can show
evidence that you have a large enough
audience to give them a reason to do a
large campaign for the book
now say you are an author who lives in
florida you have a good local community
but you have this huge twitter following
right you have this huge instagram
following
you all these people where you can talk
about your book and it sells
now you may want to tell them like hey
looking at my data i know the majority
of my
huge following is actually in california
so i would love to be in your
in your stores in california versus like
oh i should be in illinois but like
a really small percentage of my
followers might be in illinois so like
that may not make sense for the business
you want to give them the data
behind it to give them the best chance
of making it a success
to then keep going with it right so
again that application that you would
fill out is below
you want to make sure that's really
polished really tight double check it
for typos double check it for everything
you know make it easy for them to pick
your book
do not send them your manuscript do not
send them more information than they're
asking for
they're getting a lot of these in so you
need to be concise detailed
to the point with that okay so that is
everything you need to know about
getting your book sold through barnes
noble got it are you excited okay
well don't forget to pick up going wide
self-publishing your books outside the
amazon ecosystem to get more information
on how you can get your book
out to more retailers outside the zone
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