CreateSpace versus Nook Press for Print Publishing

Barnes and Noble has been struggling to compete with Amazon for some time and it is a battle for survival. For those who have been following the ebook wars, it is clear Amazon is winning the battle for device adoption and ebook format. Amazon supposedly controls about 67% of the ebook market, depending on whose numbers you refer to.

Amazon has aggressively pursued the print-on-demand (POD) share of the print market through its purchase and development of CreateSpace. Lightning Source has been CreateSpace's primary competitor for the POD market.

Barnes and Noble recently entered the fray with a print division of its Nook Press. Competition in the marketplace is a good thing, particularly for indie and self-publishing authors.

A quick examination of the Nook Press print web site gives the answer about whether or not Barnes and Noble will be able to compete with industry giants LSI and CreateSpace. The future, based on price per copy alone, looks doubtful for Nook Press.

Using the online price calculator provided a quote of $5 per book, less tax and S&H, was provided for a black and white, paperback edition with white paper in 6x9 trim with a page count of 201-250 pages.

 

The same book, with the maximum of 250 pages, from CreateSpace would cost $3.85. I did not bother to calculate the price for the same book from LSI.

Cost alone prevented me from investigating further in the ease of use of Nook Press. Granted, hardback editions and hardback with dust jackets are available, and for some authors that may be a factor.

The only possible advantage to using Nook Press is the possibility the books could be carried in the brick and mortar Barnes and Noble retail stores. I was not able to determine if this possibility exists from navigating the website.

If anyone has any additional insight into this new division of Nook Press, please comment.

Kudos to Barnes and Noble for the New Nook Press!

It might be old news to some of the readers of this blog, but Barnes and Noble recently replaced its old ebook publishing interface, PubIt, with a new one, Nook Press. While BN may be struggling to compete with its combination of brick and mortar stores and to carve out market share in the Amazon dominated ebook market, the company certainly took a step in the right direction with Nook Press, making it much easier for authors to self-publish their books for BN's Nook ereader.

I recently finished three new ebook conversions and uploaded them to the Amazon Kindle ebook store. I have long ago stopped worrying about BN's Nook store. I sell very few books for the Nook. But, since I had three new files ready to go, I thought I might as well take a few minutes and load them on the BN site for sale. I am glad I took the time.

The new interface is much easier to use, has more features and actually has some features Amazon's KDP does not!

Here are two I have discovered so far that I wish Amazon made available to authors:

• You can list your book in up to five categories, making it possible to reach as broad an audience as possible via the search process in the BN search engine. Amazon limits you to two categories when you upload your Kindle file.
• You can actually edit your interior file! I really wish Amazon would let you do the same, making it much easier to correct errors or update your book.

Competition is good and I am sure the need to carve out more share of the ebook market is what forced BN to improve its ebook interface for authors. It is now easier to use than the Kindle interface, at least in my opinion.

While I doubt my sales will take a big jump at BN any time soon, I will certainly be uploading all of my new ebook files at BN as well as Amazon's KDP in the future.