Self-Publishing

Sad Good-byes A Different Kind of Superhero

Self-Publishing

We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

Ever wonder why Amazon.com is the thousand-pound gorilla in the business of indie and self-publishing? After all, Barnes & Noble is a huge bookseller. Their Nook should have the advantage in this field. And iPad? There are millions of them around. They should fierce competitors for Amazon.

Maybe the answer to the question lies in the fact that Amazon takes care of business and makes it simple and easy for authors to publish both paperback and Kindle versions. I speak from a certain amount of experience, since I now have four books on the market.

Shortly after I published Heaven Sent, my first book, a waitress in a restaurant where I frequently eat breakfast asked me if it was available on iPad. I wasn’t even aware iPad published books, but I told her I’d check it out.

Sure enough, I found iPad does publish e-books—as you probably already knew. So I went to their website to upload my book, and I discovered they didn’t want it. Since I use PCs instead of Macs, I was automatically disqualified. Only Mac users need apply.

Okay. It’s their football, so I guess it’s only fair for them to decide who plays and who doesn’t. But since PCs still outsell Macs by a good margin, it looks to me like Apple is shooting itself in the foot on this.

Barnes & Noble’s pubit.com was only too happy to accept my work for Nook. They put both Heaven Sent and Fancy on sale immediately. When I uploaded Fancy: The Search- Vol 2, they accepted it, but they showed it as processing. This was back in October, and it’s still processing. After several weeks and many emails, I decided to try uploading it again as a new book. This time it went through with no problem. But the original attempt still shows on their website as processing. Right next to the one that’s for sale.

In December, I released Fancy: Louisvile – Vol 3. Amazon published it for Kindle and Amazon’s CreateSpace published the paperback—promptly. No problems. Once again, however, pubit.com put it on the website as processing. A month later, it’s still processing.

Again, I’ve sent countless e-mails asking them to correct the problem. They ignore about half of them and respond to about half by telling me there’s a technical problem. No kidding! Who’d have guessed?

Can a company as large as Barnes & Noble not afford to hire a programmer or a web administrator who can fix whatever the problem is? Do they not really care about those of us who self-publish? I don’t understand this at all.

What frustrations have you run into in getting your work published? How did you manage to get the problems worked out?

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For more information about David N. Walker, click the “About” tab above.

For more information about his books, click on “Books” above.

Contact him at dnwalkertx (at) gmail (dot) com or tweet him at @davidnwalkertx.