Thursday 2 May 2013

Has the world gone mad?

I tried to sign up for Barns and Noble today and had a rather confusing experience.

This is what their terms and conditions say: 
"If you wish to wish to publish and distribute your eBooks through NOOK Press, you must sign up for a Vendor Account, which will require you to provide us the following information: (i) for tax reporting purposes, your home address and, if you are located in the United States your federal tax identification number (or social security number if you are an individual), or if you are located outside of the United States, similar identifying information issued by the applicable governmental authority; and (ii) for the purpose of transmitting payments to you, your bank account number and routing information if you are located in the United States, or your SWIFT or International Bank Account Number (IBAN) if you are located outside the United States."
Sounds like they accept international authors, no? Except that once I had completed my account information, I got an email asking me to call them and verify the account. I called and was told that they cannot accept authors who are not US residents. 

I checked the terms and conditions again and called back, only to be told to instant message business services. I did, only to be told the same thing. Then I received an email to confirm that they cannot accept international authors.

However, NO ONE CAN ANSWER WHY THEIR TERMS AND CONDITIONS SAY THEY DO ACCEPT INTERNATIONAL AUTHORS, WHEN THEY DON'T!!!
"On Thursday, the company reported a stunning 26 percent drop in Nook sales during the last quarter of 2012. The Nook, said CEO William Lynch, was no longer able to compete with full-featured tablets like the iPad." Source
I know self publishing authors from all around the globe who are doing very well with Amazon kindle, and I alone have had 3 best sellers on Amazon. If you want to be some special snowflake of a company, who just can't accept international clients, then no wonder you are failing. You deserve to fail, and Amazon (despite my many problems with them of late) deserve to beat you.


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