I had the bright idea that I should get even more independent in my self-publishing adventures by kicking Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to the curb and instead choosing Barnes & Noble Press for the publishing of my novel, Something About AI. The last straw came in June of this year when KDP changed the royalty rate for paperbacks priced below $10 from 60% to 50%. This comes on top of books by little people like me having a low possibility of being discovered due to Amazon’s algorithms. Popular authors can go with high selling points but little people often rely on low prices to gain readers. Besides all that, I’d also read too many articles and blog posts about those unfortunate enough to have accidentally broken KDP’s strict rules, leading to permanent account bans with support inconsistent and not friendly. In all fairness, I didn’t find information claiming B&N was much better, but I thought it worth the effort to give them a try.
I also decided to purchase my own ISBNs from Bowker. com. More independence. In the USA via Bowker only (if you acquire elsewhere, they still come from Bowker) one ISBN is $125. Ten are $300. In many other countries (Canada, for example) they’re free. I knew one wouldn’t be enough since my novel would need one for paperback and another for eBook. If you shop on Bowker, be careful. They sell other services that you don’t need (barcodes, for example) at very high prices. The history of Bowker is interesting, perhaps another article for another day.
The process of loading your book is similar between the two publishers. I found B&N’s category selections to be very limiting, but I also never worked out all the ways to get to the KDP choices that you can see if you use KDP Rocket. I loaded everything on Barnes & Noble first and after it published I decided to go ahead and list on KDP too. I was able to use the same ISBN for both B&N and KDP. The main difference I experienced was in the costs.
KDP’s cost for printing the book is $5.15, while B&N’s is $5.44. The royalty difference is more significant. In both markets, I set the retail price of the paperback at $13. Barnes & Noble pays a royalty of $1.71 per paperback. For Amazon, the royalty is $2.68. That’s practically a $1 per book difference. There was quite a difference when ordering a Proof copy, as well. KDP was $9.43 in total whereas B&N was $14.20. The difference in the B&N cost is the aforementioned difference in printing costs, plus $1 for “handling,” and the shipping was more expensive. Not only is the shipping more via B&N, it also estimates a longer wait for delivery. I had a 9/30/2025 publish date set, allowing 15 days to get and review the proof. Barnes & Noble estimated delivery for that proof as 9/29/2025, the day before the publish date! That’s the main reason why I decided to publish on KDP; so I could get a proof within a couple of days. And I did.
Another lesson learned is regarding Expanded Distribution.
“Expanded distribution,” particularly through platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), is a feature that makes a self-published book available to a wider range of online retailers, bookstores, and libraries beyond the publisher’s own platform. While it offers the potential for greater visibility and wider sales, authors typically receive a lower royalty rate and have less control over distribution, with the final decision to list and sell the book resting with the distributors, retailers, and libraries themselves.” – Google AI Assistant
Both KDP and B&N have expanded distribution, but search results show KDP has a greater distribution network. The downside is that KDP authors get lower royalties from sales in those markets. I didn’t really think this option through before I published on B&N because when I went to publish on KDP, I learned: “ISBN: The paperback can have an ISBN you bought or one assigned by KDP. Your book’s ISBN must not have been submitted for distribution through another service.” source I thought this was why, at first, KDP wasn’t accepting my ISBN since I published via B&N but after many tries it finally took.
Now, regarding the eBook. I don’t really like the way my .epub looks but Atticus standard templates have fixed header spacing that isn’t directly adjustable, as it’s meant to align with common industry standards with the body text beginning 1/3 to 1/2 down the page. Seems like a lot of wasted space to me. That is an Atticus (book layout) issue, not a KDP or B&N issue – for those that use Atticus.
B&N royalty rates for eBooks is pretty good, especially if I were to price it at $13!! But I didn’t.
Here is a comparison for a few different online publishers.
Both B&N and KDP offer a choice between using DRM encryption for digital content. Here is some good information about Digital Rights Management (DRM) from https://freedomsolo.com/should-i-enable-drm-on-kdp/
- Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a set of technologies that help protect digital content from being illegally copied, shared, or distributed without permission.
- DRM is typically used in the publishing, music, and video game industries, and is becoming increasingly popular among authors and publishers.
- DRM helps to ensure that authors and publishers have control over the rights to their work, and can limit the public’s access to the content if necessary.
- When DRM is enabled on a book, it will restrict who can access the content and how it can be used.
- It may limit the book to a certain number of devices or allow only one user to access it.
- It may also limit the number of times a book can be printed, copied, or shared.
- DRM also can prevent copying and pasting, as well as printing out of the book.
A couple of last points. When I loaded the .epub into KDP it came back to tell me it had found misspellings (which actually weren’t) but B&N doesn’t do a quality check like that. And, when it came to being available to the public, KDP was hours quicker for the eBook, and a day or two quicker for the paperback.
That pretty much sums up all I have to say about the comparison of self-publishing on Barnes & Noble Press versus KDP. Best decision I made, though, was obtaining my own ISBN. If you have any questions you can send them directly to me at kelzone@protonmail.com and I’ll do my best to answer.