I have heard from three authors today that they’ve had their wrists slapped by their publishers. Why?
For not having Barnes and Noble sales links on their sites for their books. Authors were informed that if updates to their sites were not made immediately Barnes and Noble would not be ordering their books.
Holy hopping shite, who in the name of better things to do has the job of surfing all the author websites looking for ordering links?
And why is a bookseller mandating authors maintain point of sale links – often at their own expense since many web management firms charge
per update (which is something that already irks me but that’s beside the point)? Referrals are earned commodities, not mandated by threats.
Anyone else get the “send your readers to B&N or else” threat today? Surely there other ways to encourage book sales than bullying & nonsense, right? Right?
ETA:
This is part of an email that was sent to authors today:
One of our major accounts is now checking author websites, and is REFUSING to put in an order if their site is not listed as a place to go to buy….
The particular account is B&N, but we anticipate that in the future more sellers will have this requirement….
Please do this ASAP…. I’m not exaggerating when I say they WILL NOT ORDER the book unless their site is listed.
Question: would it have been too much to… ask? Instead of, you know, threatening?
