Ebook distributor Draft2Digital is increasing royalties paid through Barnes & Noble sales and adding new promotional opportunities for self-publishers with B&N.
Authors will get around 60% of the list price for all sales, regardless of the price point. This is a substantially higher royalty for low and high ebook prices than you would get by publishing direct with B&N’s Nook book store as the direct royalty rates are:
US
$0.99-$2.98 – 40%
$2.99-$9.99 – 65%
$10-$199.99 – 40%
UK
£0.75-£1.49 – 40%
£1.50-£7.99 – 65%
£8-£120 – 40%
Europe
€ 0.99-€ 2.49 – 40%
€ 2.50-€ 9.49 – 65%
€ 9.50-€199.99 – 40%
D2D is also speeding up payments and gives the example of authors receiving payment for June sales under the new terms in the first half of August, instead of having to wait until September.
Promotions and pre-orders
New promotional opportunities at Barnes & Noble include being able to list your book for free through B&N.
Authors can now also list their forthcoming books as pre-orders. To set up a pre-order, choose a future Release Date on the Acquisitions page when setting up a new book project and go on to the Publish page.
D2D deliver the metadata to the sales channels selected and pre-order pages should show up at Barnes & Noble within a few days. When the release date comes round, your book will automatically go live.
D2D now supports free promotions and pre-orders at all their sales channels.
Processing delays
The firm says these new terms require a small trade-off in the form of additional processing delays. Estimated sales will no longer update hourly and Barnes & Noble sales will update daily (in line with other sales channels through D2D).
Publishing can take 24-48 hours to pass through Barnes & Noble’s internal processes.
There may be additional delays during the transition, which is scheduled to happen early next week. If you have any time-sensitive changes such as promotional pricing or book launches, we recommend submitting those changes no later than 11am CDT on Monday, May 12.