by Tom Ashford

Welcome to the SPF Weekly Write-Up, where each Wednesday we collect together the self-publishing news of the week so you don’t have to.

This week: Barnes & Noble allow advertising, PublishDrive helps authors keep their royalties, and the SPF Foundation closes very soon.

Advertising Through Barnes & Noble

You’ve heard of Amazon Ads, but have you heard of Barnes & Noble Ads?

The world’s largest bookseller (or dedicated bookseller, at least) now allows you to advertise directly through their website – allowing you to potentially reach new readers in much the same way as you would through Amazon. Details still seem fairly slim on the ground, but the method seems a little different – you’re buying advert space rather than bidding on keywords, from how things look on the ‘Ad Spec’ folder of their website.

I can’t imagine their new advertising platform will be an overnight success, but it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on as it develops. They do have twenty-one million monthly visitors to their site, after all…

Find out more about their ads platform here.

Does PublishDrive Benefit Authors?

Have you watched or listened to last week’s episode of the Self Publishing Show? We spoke to Kinga Jentetics, CEO of PublishDrive, about how her company helps deliver an author’s books to a great many more people around the world than might be possible just using the more ‘traditional’ channels (Amazon, Apple Books, etc.).

There were some raised eyebrows regarding their royalty rates – authors earning more than $1000 a month can opt to pay a monthly fee of $100 and receive ALL of the royalties from the stores (minus the stores’ fees, of course). But does this work out better for the author?

Yes, is the short answer. According to PublishDrive, “after analyzing her sales data over a two month period, PublishDrive concluded that [indie author Rachel Morgan] was able to keep about 16% more of her royalties compared to using a traditional royalty share option.”

There you have it. You can check out the original article here.

SPF Foundation Closes Soon

Last but not least: today and tomorrow mark the last two days to enter an application for the SPF Foundation, after it was extended by a month and the requirement to have a sponsor was removed. If you earn less than $30,000 a year (or equivalent) and have at least ten five-star reviews on Amazon or other platforms, you could be eligible for free enrolment in both the 101 and Ads for Authors courses!

Check out the rest of the requirements here. Don’t miss out – only four spaces are awarded.

Tom Ashford

Tom Ashford is a professional copywriter, author of numerous dark fantasy and sci-fi novels, and the Head of Content at the Self Publishing Formula Blog. His books include the Blackwater trilogy and the Checking Out series.

He lives in London with his wife, in an apartment that doesn’t allow pets. Find out more about Tom here.