On our Self-Publishing in a Box chart, action step number 10 is about placing your book in online bookstores. Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble and a number of other online places will place your book. We do not, however, recommend approaching Barnes & Noble bookstores until you are ready, which is usually after you have built up a strong online presence and you have a professional book. Here’s why:

One of our authors at ZDocs recently received the following rejection letter from Barnes & Noble:

“The book appears not to have been either professionally designed or edited. Please visit your local bookseller and examine the design elements of other books in this category. Design elements include typeface, jacket, layout, photo reproduction, table of contents and index.”

This is a real letter from Barnes & Noble bookstores. The website accepted this book just as Amazon and Borders did. But getting the book into the stores would have been exciting, to say the least. So let’s examine this rejection letter more closely.

1. The book was edited by a professional editor, but the author rejected many of the editor’s suggestions.
2. The book cover was designed by the author’s employees and not by a designer who has had books accepted by bookstores.
3. The author did go to Barnes and Noble and looked at books, but the books were not books in the same genre as the author’s book. This is a great point.
4. The author insisted on being “creative” with the layout of the book’s interior pages and I think this hurt the book’s chances with Barnes & Noble.
5. The book does not have an index.

This real-life experience is invaluable. At Authors On The Net, we discuss each of these elements and we have experts discussing these topics in our forums. But seeing a book get rejected because of design flaws makes these arguments more powerful. The letter never said the book was a “bad book.” The letter never said it was poorly written. But the letter did say the competition for shelf-space in their stores is fierce. Why should Barnes & Noble accept books that do not meet its quality standards?

I have heard of authors spending $5,000 to get a book designed. I always thought that spending $5,000 was extreme, but I can now see the value. However, the fact remains that many authors do not have $5,000 just to design a book. The letter from B&N gives us a clue and we discuss this at AON. To get a professional book designed, go to B&N, get a book in the same category as your book and take the book to your designer. You should be able to get a book designed for about $1,000. I highly recommend you use a professional graphic designer who has experience with books.

The last point I’ll make is while we sent a promotional plan in with a sample of the book, I believe we could have made a stronger case for the book and our promotional plan may be lacking in this area. We will need to revisit this.

If you want to read more about getting a book accepted by Barnes & Noble, click here.