Barnes & Noble Press
- Jan 3
- 19 min read
Updated: Jan 5
Many authors are unaware that Barnes & Noble Press provides a set of advantages that few other retailers offer. It pays a flat 70 percent royalty on any eligible ebook priced at $0.99 and up, even at higher price points where Amazon drops to 35 percent and chips away at earnings with delivery fees, meaning a $14.99 craft book or omnibus can still return about ten dollars per sale. That same listing is effectively your ticket into Barnes & Noble’s national events ecosystem, because stores and the chain’s virtual program can only consider titles they can sell through bn.com, and the company is in the middle of an aggressive expansion with dozens of new stores opening over the next few years rather than closing locations. On top of that, B&N’s own documentation explicitly warns authors that no one will ever legitimately offer in-store placement in exchange for a fee, which makes B&N Press one of the few routes tied to real physical shelf space that is structurally insulated from the “pay to shelf” scams that still circle hybrid and vanity publishing.
Barnes & Noble Press operates within a convergence of forces that now define how working writers build careers. Self-publishing has moved from fringe to mainstream, with self-published titles carrying ISBNs surpassing 2.6 million in 2023, up more than 7% in a single year and more than doubling over the past decade, while estimates suggest that roughly one-third of all books sold in the United States are now independently published. In parallel, Barnes & Noble has reclaimed a dominant position in physical retail, holding more than a quarter of the U.S. bookstore market, selling around 190 million physical books and over one million unique physical titles annually, and operating roughly 600 stores with a presence in every state. After years of contraction, the chain has returned to growth, opening more than 50 new locations in 2024, planning for around 60 more in 2025, and targeting a similar number in 2026. Alongside that footprint, the Nook platform and bn.com storefront anchor a digital catalog that rivals other major retailers for breadth, giving millions of readers a way to buy ebooks and audiobooks inside a dedicated bookseller environment rather than a general online marketplace.
For independent and hybrid authors, Barnes & Noble Press is the direct route into Nook libraries and into print-on-demand editions that live inside Barnes & Noble’s retail systems. When a romantasy like Powerless can begin life as a self-published title on Barnes & Noble Press and Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and later be acquired by a major house, it signals that the platform is part of the real commercial landscape. Bestselling indie romance and historical authors now routinely use Barnes & Noble Press to release special Nook editions with bonus content, to coordinate nationwide signing tours through local stores, and to make sure readers who discover them in person can buy the books from the retailer they wish to support.
This guide treats Barnes & Noble Press as just one of the structural tools necessary within an author's business. It focuses on what you can actually publish, how formats and royalties work, where your books appear, what is realistic for store placement and promotions, and how the platform fits alongside Amazon, other retailers, and direct sales. The goal is to help you determine whether Barnes & Noble Press should have a defined role in your distribution plan and, if so, how to leverage it to support a long-term, sustainable catalog.
Origins and Positioning
Barnes & Noble moved into self-publishing in stages as digital reading grew. In 2010, it launched PubIt!, a web-based platform that allowed authors and small publishers to upload ebooks directly to the Nook Store with no startup fees and a simple royalty structure. For the first time, independent titles could enter Barnes & Noble’s digital catalog through an author-controlled portal rather than a distributor.
In 2013, PubIt! was rebuilt and rebranded as Nook Press. The new version introduced a more modern interface, browser-based writing and editing tools, basic collaboration features, and clearer onboarding for new authors. By then, self-published ebooks already accounted for a significant share of Nook sales, and Barnes & Noble began treating independent authors as a distinct customer segment.
The next major shift came in 2018, when Barnes & Noble retired the Nook Press name and unified its digital and print-on-demand offerings under Barnes & Noble Press. The relaunch brought higher royalties at specific ebook price points, a wider range of trim sizes and color options for print, and a single dashboard for managing both formats. It also clarified how self-published titles could be considered for in-store events and occasional local shelf placement, tying the platform more directly to the retail chain and bn.com.
Today, Barnes & Noble Press is a free, self-service portal for independent authors, small presses, and organizations that want to publish directly into the Barnes & Noble ecosystem while retaining control of their rights, files, and imprint identity.
What You Can Publish with Barnes & Noble Press
Barnes & Noble Press supports both digital and print formats from a single dashboard, allowing authors to build a matched set of editions without juggling separate systems.
Ebooks
For digital, Barnes & Noble Press supports standard reflowable ebooks that work across Nook devices, Nook apps on phones and tablets, and browser-based reading. Authors can publish in all of the major trade categories, including:
Commercial and literary fiction in series or stand-alone form.
Nonfiction across categories such as memoir, business, self-development, and reference.
Children’s and middle-grade titles are suited to reflowable layout.
A wide range of niche and specialty genres that rely on clean text and simple interior structure.
Fixed-layout and heavily illustrated projects have some constraints, so text-forward books with straightforward formatting enjoy the smoothest path through the system.
Print Books
On the print side, Barnes & Noble Press offers a set of options designed to mirror standard trade production:
Paperbacks are available in multiple trim sizes that suit most fiction, narrative nonfiction, and many illustrated interiors.
Hardcovers are available with case laminate or a dust jacket, allowing authors to offer premium editions for libraries, collectors, or gift markets.
Interior choices that include black and white, standard color, and premium color so that authors can match print quality and cost to the needs of the project.
Matte and glossy cover finishes, which support different aesthetic and category norms.
Page count ranges typically span short works of a few dozen pages to substantial volumes of several hundred pages.
To set up a book, authors upload a formatted manuscript file, most often in Word or PDF, along with a print-ready cover file for physical editions. Barnes & Noble Press provides detailed formatting documentation covering margins, trim and bleed, font embedding, and image resolution, ensuring interiors and covers pass preflight checks with no issues.
The platform does not currently support spiral binding, foil stamping, leather covers, or other specialty bindings. Authors who produce workbooks, highly interactive interiors, or art objects that require those treatments often pair Barnes & Noble Press with a secondary printer to supply specialized formats, while using Barnes & Noble Press for standard trade editions that will sit comfortably in the Nook and bn.com environment.
Royalties, Pricing, and Payments
Barnes & Noble Press allows authors to build both digital and print editions from a single dashboard, using the same core metadata for every format. That structure matters because it enables an independent author to present a coherent set of ebooks and print books that look and behave like trade titles in the Nook store and on bn.com.
Ebooks
For digital projects, Barnes & Noble Press is built around the EPUB standard. Under the hood, Nook devices and apps read EPUB files, and the platform treats EPUB as its house format for reflowable ebooks. Authors can upload well-prepared Word documents, plain-text files, HTML, or existing EPUBs; the system converts them into Nook-ready ebooks during processing.
This environment suits most text-forward books, including:
Commercial and literary novels with clean chapter structures
Nonfiction such as memoir, how-to, business, and essays that do not depend on complex layouts
Children’s and middle-grade titles that can live comfortably in reflowable text
Niche genres and novellas that benefit from rapid digital release
The platform is optimized for reflowable layouts, where text adapts to different screen sizes. Heavily illustrated books, dense tables, or designs that depend on fixed page relationships can be produced. Still, they require more careful testing and are often better treated as print-led projects with digital as a secondary format.
Ebook file-size limits are high enough for typical manuscripts but still worth noting: titles must stay under roughly 20 MB, which encourages authors to optimize images and avoid unnecessarily heavy files.
Print Books
On the print side, Barnes & Noble Press mirrors mainstream trade production so that independent books look at home next to traditionally published titles. The platform supports:
Paperbacks in a wide range of trim sizes, from compact mass-market dimensions to standard trade sizes such as 5" × 8" and 6" × 9", plus larger formats suitable for workbooks and visually led projects
Hardcovers are offered as printed case-bound or with a dust jacket, using the same core trim size range, allowing you to provide a premium edition without creating a separate workflow
Interiors are printed in black and white, standard color, or premium color so that you can match cost and quality to the needs of the book.
Several paper stocks, including cream and white text stocks for black-and-white interiors and heavier white stocks for color printing
A glued “perfect-bound” spine as the default, which is the same style used in most trade paperbacks
The minimum page count for most trim sizes is 18 pages, and the maximum generally extends up to about 800 pages, with tighter limits on the largest landscape formats. Print interior files must stay below the platform’s upper size cap, which is rarely a constraint for text-led work but becomes relevant for long, color-intensive books.
To create a print edition, authors upload a formatted interior file, typically as a PDF exported to standard print specifications, and a separate print-ready cover file that matches the chosen trim size, spine width, and bleed. Barnes & Noble Press provides a print formatting guide covering margins, running heads, fonts, image resolution, and other preflight details, enabling an independent author to meet the same technical standards a trade production department would expect.
There are limits to the platform by design. Barnes & Noble Press does not offer spiral binding, foil stamping, embossing, leather covers, or other specialty bindings. When projects require those features, many authors treat Barnes & Noble Press as the home for standard trade editions aimed at Nook and bn.com customers and use a specialist printer for workbooks, coil-bound manuals, or high-end art objects that fall outside normal trade parameters.
ISBNs and Metadata
Barnes & Noble Press handles identifiers and metadata the way the rest of the industry does, which is precisely what you want if you care about how your book appears to stores, librarians, and databases.
Authors can bring their own ISBNs for each format. When you do that, the publisher of record is your imprint or company name, not Barnes & Noble. That matters if you are building a recognizable press identity, plan to pitch to libraries and wholesalers, or want your catalog to look coherent across multiple retailers and formats. It also means that if you later change printers or add another sales channel, you are not locked into an ISBN that carries someone else’s name.
If you do not want to purchase ISBNs yourself, Barnes & Noble Press will assign them for free. In that case, Barnes & Noble Press appears as the publisher of record in industry-facing data. You still own the copyright and control pricing and content. Still, that identifier cannot be moved to another platform later, and the book will not visually reinforce your own imprint in bibliographic records. For one-off projects or low-stakes experiments, that tradeoff can be acceptable. For a long-term catalog, most serious authors and small presses choose to own their ISBNs.
Each distinct print format requires its own ISBN. A Nook ebook can be published without an ISBN, though providing one can improve visibility with libraries and wholesalers. Print editions are not optional: a paperback, a hardcover, a large-print edition, and a special edition would each be treated as distinct products and should each carry a separate ISBN. Reusing a single ISBN across formats or significantly different editions is a fast way to create confusion in store systems and cataloging.
During setup, Barnes & Noble Press asks for the complete set of bibliographic and marketing metadata:
Title and subtitle, exactly as they appear on the book
Series name and number, so volumes line up cleanly for readers and in search results
Contributor roles, including author, illustrator, editor, and translator
Subject categories, drawn from a BISAC-style list, that signal genre and audience
Keywords that reflect themes, settings, and niche hooks
A descriptive blurb that functions as your sales copy
For children’s and teen books, you can also specify age range and grade level, which helps parents, teachers, and librarians find appropriate material. All of this data feeds Nook search, category browsing on bn.com, and internal recommendation systems. Solid metadata strategy determines where your book is shelved digitally, what it is shelved next to, and whether it can be surfaced when a librarian, bookseller, or reader searches for themes or subjects rather than an exact title.
For independent authors and small presses, getting identifiers and metadata right is one of the main ways to stand alongside traditionally published titles. A clean set of ISBNs under your own imprint, consistent metadata across all platforms, and accurate categories and keywords will do more for long-term visibility than any single short-term promotion.
Distribution and Reach
With any platform, the crucial question is not only whether a book is technically “available,” but where it actually lives in the retail ecosystem and how that shapes its chances of being seen. Barnes & Noble Press sits at the junction of the Nook digital store, the bn.com website, and a nationwide chain of roughly six hundred brick-and-mortar bookstores that has been expanding again after several years of contraction. For independent authors, that combination gives each title a stable home in a retail environment that many readers already use for both browsing and buying.
Ebooks published through Barnes & Noble Press are sold in the Nook Store and appear on Nook devices, in Nook apps on phones and tablets, and on the Barnes & Noble website. A dedicated base of readers continues to prefer Nook hardware or maintain long-standing Nook libraries, particularly in the United States, and they tend to buy and read within that ecosystem rather than switching platforms. This is most relevant in categories that historically perform well on e-readers: romance, mystery and thrillers, science fiction and fantasy, and book-club-friendly fiction see some of the strongest engagement. When an author publishes widely but skips Nook, that entire pocket of readers is effectively unreachable, no matter how strong the book is elsewhere. Because Nook editions appear alongside print editions in bn.com search results and on title pages, they also benefit from readers who arrive on the site looking for a subject, series, or author and are open to buying in either format.
Print books created through Barnes & Noble Press are listed on bn.com as print-on-demand titles. A reader searches for the book, places an order, and the copy is printed and shipped, with the author not handling inventory or logistics. The same listing is visible to booksellers within store systems, allowing staff to special-order copies for customers or bring in stock for a local event. Authors can order their own copies at print cost and use those for signings, conferences, classroom visits, and direct sales, while still having a straightforward way for readers to purchase additional copies online.
What Barnes & Noble Press does not do is ensure placement of every self-published book onto physical shelves. In-store stocking decisions sit with buyers and store managers, who weigh sales history, category performance, local interest, price point, design quality, and the store’s broader merchandising plan. Publishing through Barnes & Noble Press ensures that a book is compatible with the chain’s systems, easily orderable, and eligible for events and limited shelf placement. Still, no title is guaranteed face-out space simply by being on the platform. For authors, the real value lies in having a direct, well-structured listing within a growing national retail network, and knowing that, if demand grows, the infrastructure is already in place for both online ordering and in-store support.
Promotions and Marketing Tools Within the Platform
Barnes & Noble Press will not run your marketing for you, but it does provide a small, practical toolkit you can integrate into your broader launch and backlist strategy. The tools are simpler than Amazon’s ad console, which is an advantage in one respect: there is less to configure and less money to spend by mistake. The tradeoff is that you must bring the traffic; the platform gives you ways to reward it and convert it.
Coupons and Price Promotions
Inside the Barnes & Noble Press dashboard, you can create coupon codes for individual ebooks or sets of titles. These codes apply a percentage discount to the list price and can be used to run temporary sales, such as offering a book at no cost for a limited period. You control the start and end dates, the exact discount level, and whether the coupon is reusable or limited to a specific number of redemptions.
The platform also supports Buy One, Get One percentage-off promotions across multiple ebooks. This lets you run series-driven campaigns such as “Buy book one, get book two half off” or “Buy any title in this trilogy and receive a discount on the companion novella.” You can schedule these promotions around launches, holidays, newsletter swaps, or social campaigns, and direct readers to a dedicated landing page on bn.com.
The real value of coupons at Barnes & Noble is not random discounting. It is the ability to:
Reward your existing Nook readers with private offers tied to your email list.
Coordinate price drops across retailers while still tracking Nook performance separately.
Test which price points and which titles respond best to promotional pressure, without locking those prices in permanently.
Overuse will train readers to wait for discounts, just as on any other platform, so you will get more out of a few well-planned, time-limited promotions than from keeping books perpetually on sale.
Preorders
Barnes & Noble Press allows you to set up ebook preorders, which means you can list a forthcoming title, accept orders, and accumulate early reviews before release day. For series authors, this is essential: each new book can include a link to preorder the next, creating a chain of committed readers rather than treating every release as a cold start.
Preorders also integrate with Barnes & Noble’s merchandising and member sales. When a book is available for preorder, it can be surfaced in “coming soon” sections, category-specific lists, and member emails that highlight upcoming titles. The effect is modest compared with a full-scale front-table push in physical stores, but for an active category and a solid cover, it can put your book on the radar of readers who have never heard of you.
To make preorders work, you need a successful listing, certainly, but you also need the cover, description, and series positioning in place early, and a plan to drive your audience to that page in the weeks leading up to launch.
Editorial Collections and Merchandising
Barnes & Noble’s merchandising team periodically pulls self-published titles into curated collections and themed lists. These might be seasonal groupings, genre spotlights, or “indie picks” that sit alongside traditionally published books. Inclusion is selective. It is based on category fit, cover and interior quality, pricing, sales performance, and how well a book aligns with what readers are currently buying.
You cannot pay your way into these slots. Barnes & Noble explicitly warns authors to ignore anyone who promises store placement or special promotion in exchange for fees. Any service making that claim is selling something other than legitimate access to merchandise.
Given that you cannot buy these placements, your leverage lies in the fundamentals: strong covers that read clearly at thumbnail size, accurate and competitive pricing, clean metadata, and consistent sales and review patterns that tell the merchandising team your book will not embarrass the section if it is featured.
Integrating Platform Tools into a Broader Plan
All of these tools work best when they are an extension of your own marketing, not a substitute for it. A well-timed coupon is most effective when it reaches an engaged email list. A preorder only matters if you have readers eager enough to pre-order a new release months in advance. Editorial collections are more likely to notice a book that already has a heartbeat.
For most independent authors, the practical approach is to treat Barnes & Noble Press promotions as one lane in a multi-lane campaign. You plan your launch calendar, newsletter pushes, advertising, social activity, and events, then you use BN Press coupons, BOGO offers, and preorders to give Nook and bn.com readers something specific to respond to. That way, the tools inside the platform are not isolated features; they are hooks you can use to turn attention into sales in a part of the market that thrives on repeat reading and loyal device-based habits.
Store Placement and Events
For many writers, the emotional draw of Barnes & Noble Press is the idea of walking into a store and seeing their book on the shelf. That is understandable, but it is crucial to distinguish what the platform structurally enables from what it does not promise.
Publishing through Barnes & Noble Press makes a title cleanly orderable. The book appears on bn.com, can be purchased online like any other print-on-demand title, and is visible to Nook customers in digital form. Store staff can look it up in their system, place special orders for individual customers, and bring in copies for events or limited local stocking, if desired. That infrastructure is guaranteed. Shelf space is not.
Physical shelf space inside Barnes & Noble stores is curated and limited. Every table and aisle must be justified by sales velocity, category mix, and presentation. In-store placement for a self-published title usually depends on a cluster of factors: a track record of online sales, a clear category fit, professional design that holds up against traditionally published comparables, and some form of marketing momentum, whether local or national. Managers and buyers are trying to answer a simple question every time they place an order for stock: will this book move, at this price, to this store’s customers?
Local authors often have the best chances. Many stores have some flexibility to support regional writers, particularly when the author can demonstrate an existing audience, a realistic price point, and a willingness to bring people into the store through signings, launch events, or book club partnerships. In those cases, the typical sequence is: the author establishes a solid-looking bn.com listing and professional packaging through Barnes & Noble Press or a wholesaler, approaches the store with a concise pitch and sample copies, and the store agrees to carry a small quantity for an event or trial period. If the books sell quickly and there is evidence of continuing interest, that initial presence can sometimes turn into ongoing, limited shelf placement.
It is also essential to understand how store sourcing works. Barnes & Noble Press print titles are printed and fulfilled through the company’s own system, which works well for online orders and event stocking. For broader in-store distribution, many stores prefer to order through the same wholesale channels they use for other publishers. This is where pairing Barnes & Noble Press with a print wholesaler such as IngramSpark often becomes practical. Ingram feeds not only Barnes & Noble but a vast network of independent and chain retailers and library vendors, and it supports trade-standard discounts and returnability, which are baseline expectations for many bricks-and-mortar accounts.
For an author whose primary goal is broad in-store distribution, Barnes & Noble Press on its own is not a complete solution. It is a direct link to bn.com and the Nook Store, and a convenient way to supply copies for events and special orders. A genuinely successful nationwide physical presence is a separate project that typically requires strong packaging, sustained demand, wholesale availability through a platform like IngramSpark, and ongoing outreach to individual stores. Treating Barnes & Noble Press as part of that larger structure, rather than as a shortcut to automatic shelving, is what keeps expectations grounded and strategy realistic.
When Barnes & Noble Press Makes the Most Sense for Authors
Barnes & Noble Press is rarely the only platform in an author’s toolkit. It is most valuable when used deliberately for specific strategic goals. Authors who publish widely often use KDP for Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) for ebooks and print; Apple Books, Kobo Writing Life, and Barnes & Noble Press as direct accounts for other major retailers; and an aggregator for smaller outlets and libraries.
In this context, Barnes & Noble Press is the direct route into the Nook ecosystem, giving authors access to Nook-specific promos and data while keeping control over pricing and metadata.
In specific genres, especially categories that have historically done well in big-box bookstores and on dedicated ereaders, a portion of the audience still prefers Nook devices. For these readers, availability “everywhere except Nook” is not enough. Barnes & Noble Press ensures the book is available where readers actually buy.
Because Barnes & Noble Press allows authors to order print copies at cost and to set up standard trade trim sizes, it can support:
In-store signings at local Barnes & Noble locations
Regional book fairs and pop-up events where bn.com ordering is a natural follow-up
Direct sales at conferences, workshops, or school visits, with online availability for those who prefer to order later
In these situations, print availability through Barnes & Noble’s systems can be more convenient than shipping books from a third-party printer.
Advantages and Limitations
On the advantages side, Barnes & Noble Press is free to use. There are no platform setup or listing fees, so you can upload and maintain your catalog without paying the service itself to keep your books available. The royalty structure is straightforward: eligible ebooks pay a flat seventy percent of list price, and print editions pay fifty-five percent of list price minus the per-unit print cost. That clarity makes it easier to model pricing and margins without hunting for hidden delivery charges or tiered commission rules. Print quality is solid and trade-compatible, with multiple trim sizes, interior options, and cover finishes that enable independent titles to sit credibly alongside traditionally published books on a shelf or in online search results. Because Barnes & Noble Press plugs directly into the Nook store and bn.com, it gives you direct access to Nook’s reader base and to Barnes & Noble’s own search and category structure. Additionally, the platform offers built-in promotional tools for ebooks, including coupons and buy-one-get-one percentage discounts, which can be tied to your campaigns. There is no exclusivity requirement, so every title you publish through Barnes & Noble Press can also appear on Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, and other platforms at the same time.
The limitations are primarily related to scale and scope. Barnes & Noble’s share of the ebook market is smaller than Amazon’s, so for most authors, this channel will be an essential secondary income stream rather than the single engine of the business. Physical store placement remains curated and selective; no self-published book is guaranteed a spot on the shelves simply because it is printed through Barnes & Noble Press, and any in-store presence must be earned through demand, fit, and local relationships. On the production side, the platform does not support specialized bindings or high-end finishes such as spiral binding, foil stamping, or leather covers, so highly specialized projects still require a separate printer. Its marketing toolkit, while useful, is leaner than the advertising and analytics suites offered by some competitors, so meaningful results depend on off-platform work: your email list, social media presence, paid ads elsewhere, and in-person events. For authors who understand these boundaries, Barnes & Noble Press becomes a reliable, well-defined component of a wider distribution and marketing strategy rather than a one-stop solution.
How Barnes & Noble Press Fits Into Long-Term Planning
For independent authors who think in terms of a career rather than a single launch, platform choices sit in the same category as contract terms and pricing strategy. They determine how resilient your income is, how many doors your books can pass through, and how easy it is to keep a steady income over time. Barnes & Noble Press earns a place in that structure when you want a direct relationship with a major non-Amazon retailer, and you care about being present wherever serious readers already shop.
In practical terms, Barnes & Noble Press is most valuable once you have at least a small backlist and a basic marketing engine of your own. Nook’s reader base responds well to authors who release consistently in familiar genres, price competitively, and bring an existing audience to each new title. Barnes & Noble’s online traffic, combined with its national store footprint, reinforces that pattern: a reader may hear about you on social media or through a newsletter, search for you on bn.com, and decide on the spot whether your catalog looks like a real body of work or a one-off experiment. When your ebooks and print editions are correctly listed through Barnes & Noble Press, the entire process feels seamless.
For authors who run in-person events, teach, or build regional followings, Barnes & Noble Press can also serve as an anchor for a local strategy. It provides a clean listing to direct readers to after a signing, makes it simple for individual stores to order copies for events or ongoing trial stocking, and allows you to tie your in-store appearances to a recognizable national brand. When paired with a wholesale route such as IngramSpark for a broader brick-and-mortar reach, it becomes part of a distribution spine that supports both online and physical channels.
Used this way, Barnes & Noble Press is never the entire business. It sits alongside KDP, other major retailers, and, for some authors, direct-to-reader sales. Its role is to cover a specific slice of the readership, provide predictable royalties on both ebooks and print, and keep a significant retail gate open without demanding exclusivity. When you treat it as a deliberate component of a wider plan, it can add durable, incremental income and make your catalog harder for any single retailer or policy change to knock off balance.
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