Should you print your book with Barnes and Noble self publishing?

In the publishing world, Barnes & Noble is a big name that most people will have heard of, and at some point, visited one of their brick & mortar stores or browsed their website at least. But would you consider self publishing with them too?

Well, they have offered the service for self-publishing authors for many years now, and being one of the big players they have a huge customer base and distribution channels for publishing, so many authors have successfully launched their book using their service​.
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One element that B&N shouts about to self publishing authors is their royalties, currently they offer up to 70% royalties on eBooks with their margin being 30%, and when you look at printed books, the royalties are 55%, the example B&N offer is as follows: 

A printed book with a retail price of $13.99 – Retail & Distribution cost of $6.30 = $7.69 (which is your 55%) the minus their printing costs of $4.57 = $3.12 (net author royalties).

There are also no upfront fees charged by B&N and they payout royalties every 30 days.

Many authors who have published via Barnes & Noble seem to be impressed with the print quality of their books, the general consensus is that the finish of each book is better than that of KDP for example, however, their turnaround time for excepting your book does tend to be a lot slower than KDP.
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But like the other big print on demand publishers, B&N do offer the option of printing your book as a paperback, Hardback case wrap and/or dust jacket, with the option of 50lb white/cream or 70bl white paper stock for the interior.

Publishing via B&N will make your book available from their website and Nook eReaders, it will also be available to order within their stores too (although seeing a printed copy of your book actually upon a shelf inside will be less likely). However, if you do publish with them, it will make your book ineligible for options such as Amazon’s KDP select.
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Barnes & Noble self publishing do offer marketing solutions for their authors, highlighting emerging and established authors in their monthly collections online, their emailed newsletters and promotional offers which are exclusive to their readers.

Pros of publishing via Barnes & Noble:
Free to set up
Royalties of 70% eBook and 55% Print
Great print quality for your paperback or hardback
Promotional services for your book
Royalties paid 30 days
Sales tracking and reports

Cons:
You won’t be able to sign up for KDP select
Many readers first port of call for purchasing a book is Amazon,
so why not be exclusive to them?
Authors have complained about the lack of support from B&N

​Overall, B&N is still worth considering, we’ve worked with authors who publish via several POD services and forego the exclusive options given when you lock into just the one publisher, it’s likely that you won’t see your book upon the shelf of your local store, but with the free set up, 55% & 70%, maybe you should have a look all the same? 

And if you want to find out more about publishing with the other big POD services, check out these other articles on KDP Publishing, IngramSpark, Lulu, Draft2Digital and Smashwords.
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