If you’ve been paying attention to publishing news, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the new platform that Barnes and Noble trotted out today. Nook Press is their latest attempt to move ahead of Amazon.com’s Kindle Desktop Publishing. At first glance it looks like it’s got a lot of features that might appeal to individual writers.
Frankly, when I got the email this morning with the “great news” that I was going to have to move the Per Aspera Press books from PubIt to Nook Press I was not looking forward to it. What a hassle, I figured. And this perception only deepened when I started looking at the news articles and watched the tutorial videos of creating a publisher account.
Yes, all this new functionality is cool. Yes, isn’t it great that I can now use their platform to actually write my manuscript? Actually it’s not. Even though they give me the option to invite collaborators to comment and review, I would never write a draft using a tool like this. Just doesn’t have all the functionality I need.
So I was dreading transitioning my books to this new platform. And that fear wasn’t assuaged by the nookpress.com site being down (or more likely overwhelmed) for much of the day. But when I actually did walk through the steps — not of setting up a new account — but of transitioning my PubIt account over. The process was …
Smooth. Easy. Almost perfect.
Seriously, I entered my old account information, and my new account information. Clicked once. Verified my email. Done.
All my books transitioned. All metadata. All my payment and company information. Seamless. Impressive.
This sort of experience is so rare that I took the time to blog this. Good job, Barnes and Noble. Please don’t let Nook die. We need you around.