Sometimes as an indie author you feel a little like a salmon swimming up river. You fight the current, you smash your head on a few rocks, and, if you’re lucky, a bear doesn’t eat you. It’s not easy going. Amazing, but not easy. From uploading files to sales tracking to creating paperback versions of our beloved ebooks, we spend a huge amount of our time involved in the publishing side of self-publishing. The technical side. The side that takes us away from our writing. And most of us would rather be writing. So the better the interface and the more streamlined the process, the happier we are.
Well, I’ve got good news. The new Barnes & Noble Press™ platform is about to make the life of a publisher a little bit easier, and a whole lot better. It’s faster, more intuitive and, for those of us who obsess about sales (you know who you are!), better sales reporting.
The new projects tab makes it simpler to do just about everything. Need to create a paperback version of an ebook? No problem. Now you can do it right from the same dashboard, and to help you save time, important metadata is cloned, so no more double entry. At a glance you can edit both ebook and print editions as well as track any personal orders for that convention you’re attending.
The entire sales reporting section is faster and more streamlined. You can search by title, author or ISBN, as well as filter and sort results. And you can delete books from your Projects page. That’s right; delete! Category mapping is vastly improved and you can have up to 12 month pre-orders. Oh, and one more little tidbit. Those books and box sets priced over $9.99, well now you get 65% for those. Not too shabby!
And speaking of sales, if you have calluses on your index finger from F5ing those sales report pages, you’re in luck. The new sales reporting has even more data than before and more granular reporting for those who like to dig deeper.
The Sales Reports home page gives you more information at a glance and the ability to toggle between ebook and print sales. You can see both unit and royalty totals without having to switch back and forth. Further down the page you still have access to the recent sales report for that up to the moment sales fix. With more detail added, the new payments section makes it easy to see what period any payment is for.
I don’t know about you, but I live in the Recent Sales report. The new report has a running tally right at the top. In fact, all of reports have totals visible right at the top for ease of use. Want to get a quick look at how one of your books did last month or last week, you can search results easily without having to download the excel file, although, that option is still there for all reports.
I was thrilled to be part of the beta for this new platform. It’s wonderful not just to be given a voice on behalf of my fellow indies but to know that the B&N Press team is listening to us. Working with them has been a fantastic experience. The new platform is sleek and clean, and I know there are more good things to come!
For more information on me and my books, please visit moniquemartin.weebly.com
Monique’s a great author. Where are the links to her books?