Dammit, B&N, are you people trying to shoot yourselves in the feet? Because it sure looks like you’re hunting for bigger and bigger guns to do just that.
Spotted on Dear Author today: news that Barnes and Noble secretly partnered with Author Solutions to sell print on demand and other services to self-pub authors.
Why is this a problem? Because Author Solutions, as detailed here by David Gaughran and here on The Digital Reader, Author Solutions has a terrible reputation in the writing community. And they are in fact being sued for their practices of upselling useless marketing crap to authors who sign on with them.
What particularly pisses me off about this is Gaughran’s description of how all Nook Press users are at risk of having their data handed to Author Solutions.
I was already cranky at B&N for taking down the Download buttons off their portal on the web site for Nook users to get to their libraries. But as a Nook Press author, I am deeply disturbed by this news, enough that I will seriously be considering removing Faerie Blood and Bone Walker from Nook Press, deleting my account there, and using Smashwords to deploy to B&N in the future.
Fellow indie authors, I urge you to get up to speed on this development, and to stay far away from B&N’s Author Services, and from Author Solutions in general.