Barnes & Noble today announced the rebranding of its indie author platform, PubIt!, as NOOK Press, and are promoting the new service as "Self-Publishing Made Simple".
It is intended to be an innovative publishing platform offering authors a fast, easy and free way to write, edit, collaborate and publish ebooks.
One of the main objectives is clearly to make it easier for authors to get their manuscript into ePub format, and apparently this new platform leverages technology from their partner FastPencil. With NOOK Press authors can now upload a Microsoft Word file, then continue to work on the manuscript, editing it and also previewing it as an ePub file.
Other New Features Include:
- “Live Chat” support on weekdays between 9:00 am and 9:00 pm EST.
- Integrated Collaboration: Authors can invite their friends and editors to read and comment on any NOOK Press project in a secure environment.
- Visually-enhanced sales report allows authors to easily track daily sales and track month-over-month progress.
- Increased merchanding opportunities with a new NOOK Press Channel coming soon.
I have to admit that I am somewhat disappointed that NOOK Press, like its predecessor, is only available to U.S. authors. It's two and half years since Pubit! was introduced. Despite Barnes & Noble making noises toward the end of 2011 about international expansion, their expansion seems to have hit a speed bump after they started selling ebooks in one more market, United Kingdom.
While Barnes & Noble is understandably excited about this latest platform, there are more than a few authors around the world who won't be able to join in the celebrations and enjoy this new service.
Speaking of authors, Barnes & Noble did reveal today a few interesting statistics regarding indie publishing at their Nook Store:
- Every quarter the number of independent authors at B&N grows by 20%.
- Every quarter the number of titles from self-published authors increases by 24%. (I guess these figures are either approximate or an average.)
- 30% of NOOK customers purchase self-published content each month, representing 25% of NOOK Book™ sales.
Useful Links
- Nook Press: www.nookpress.com
- Official Press Release
- Are you outside the US but want to take a peek? Over at Media Bistro's AppNewser, you can watch some NOOK Press video tutorials.
Thank you very much Gary. I am a writer but I find some of the hi-tech internet stuff confusing. Please, I really need to know how to publish and market my own e-books. Do I self-publish or do I pay an online outfit to do the job for me?
Manuel, if you are in United States you should be able to do it yourself using NOOK Press. For other ebook stores you’ll need to create ePub or Mobi files. There are some helpful articles in the right sidebar under “Popular” which introduce you to ebook publishing and may help you make your decision whether you can do it yourself.
Thank you very much for the prompt reply. Well, I do not live in the US any longer. Right now I live somewhere in West Africa so how do I proceed?