Barnes & Noble to Launch Nook Press in the UK This Week
Barnes & Noble is showing every sign of losing interest in the consumer ebook market as they shift their focus to the educational market, but it looks like they have decided to tie up at least one loose string before the change in direction.
The Bookseller is reporting that Barnes & Noble will be launching their Nook Press self-publishing platform in the UK this week at the Oxford Literary Festival, which runs 22 March through 26 March. The festival will feature appearances by a number of well-known authors, including Ian McEwan, Eleanor Catton, Malorie Blackman, Michael Morpurgo, and more.
This year it will also feature Nook demos. Barnes & Noble is a sponsor of the festival this year, and in addition to partnering with Blackwell’s to show off the Nook hardware B&N will also be holding several sessions to promote Nook Press. The sessions will be held in the Festival Marquee, and will include talks on "Introduction to Self-Publishing with Nook" on 23 March and 25 March.
Colin Eustace, general manager of of the Luxembourg-based Nook international team said: "As Nook continues to grow in the UK we are proud to announce the upcoming launch of the Nook Press self-publishing platform and we invite authors and writers at the Oxford Literary Festival to speak to a representative for more information."
Barnes & Noble launched Nook Press, their second self-pub platform, in April 2013. It replaced PubIt, which had launched in late 2010. PubIt did not expand into the UK when B&N launched there in late 2012, and Nook Press has yet to expand to support self-published authors in the UK or the 30 other countries where B&N sells ebooks; until this week it were effectively limited to only self-published authors in the US.
There’s no word yet on when Nook Press might become available in the other 30 countries where B&N has a local Nook Store, but the Nook Press website does mention that they are accepting names of future beta testers for a number of countries in Europe: France, Italy, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands, and Belgium.
However, I do not expect those beta testers to be contacted. B&N has recently announced that they were abandoning their Nook app for Windows 8 in favor of a not yet released reading app from Microsoft. They are effectively ceding the international Nook Store to Microsoft, so I would not expect them to have much interest in promoting self-published authors.
Update: B&N has opened up Nook Press to authors in 7 countries in Europe.
Comments
flyingtoastr March 17, 2014 um 10:49 am
"They are effectively ceding the international Nook Store to Microsoft, so I would not expect them to have much interest in promoting self-published authors."
BN is still providing all the content for said store, so why wouldn’t they have their self published platform in place?
Geert March 17, 2014 um 1:58 pm
It is all about content. That MS supplies the app selling that content is not a disadvantage. As B&N never could afford the developers needed to support their apps, I consider MS creating the app an advantage.
I expect that the launch of the new B&N website next month, will be the start of a further international rollout with the new tablet device and Android/IOS apps (just like Amazon.com for those countries without their own Amazon store).
I expect that the launch of the new B&N website next month will be the start of a lot of new exiting developments for B&N this year.
fjtorres March 17, 2014 um 2:16 pm
The reading app is the storefront, what consumers see.
Before, nook controlled the customer relationship, the publisher relationship, and the transaction processing. Now Microsoft controls the front end.
When MS took control of the front end, they changed Nook’s role from hosted ebookstore to ebook provider for Microsoft’s store. The book catalog provider can be replaced without replacing the front end as there are at least three major ebook backend services MS can turn to for tradpub content and there’s Smashwords for indie content. Nook is now replaceable.
For now, MS seems willing to give Nook a bit more time to shspe up but they are also setting the stage for a post-Nook world. Due diligence insurance.
flyingtoastr March 17, 2014 um 2:26 pm
Except for the whole thorny issue of the fact that the two companies are presumably in a multi-year contract, as is the norm in any kind of relationship like this.
Yes, at some point in the indeterminate future Microsoft could decide to go it alone. But for a next few years they’re legally barred from doing so, so your conspiracy theory is completely off base.
FUD more.
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