Barnes & Noble: 5 Changes Many Self-Published Authors Missed

Have you heard the rumor going around the internet that Barnes Noble has banned book signings? Well, they haven't actually banned book signings, but you do need to know what they've done if you're hoping to have a table selling your book in a bookstore. So if you were planning on having a book signing this year, this video is for you. Hi, I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers and your host here at Book Launchers All right, so here's what happened. Word got out that Barnes Noble stores got new guidance on local author events. They're supposed to have fewer tables, and they've also been told not to park any tables at the front of the store. But the part that kind of kicked some authors in the teeth was the part where they were told, don't say yes to a local author unless they can show they have a following. The author forums did what the author forums do, and And there was 2 very strong opinions everywhere. Take one, Barnes Noble is banning self-published authors, gatekeeping again. Opinion 2, Barnes Noble is dying and this is them panicking. Well, guess what? Neither of those is actually true. Let's be clear, they haven't banned anything. Their own public page still says stores host thousands of local authors every year and it actually lists zero barriers to entry. And Barnes Noble's not dying. They opened 50 stores in the last year, and they've added dozens a year for 3 years running. They're pushing back toward their mid-2000s peak of almost 800 locations. That is a company adding shelf space, not panicking. But what actually happened? Well, this whole thing that came out this year is actually the 5th move in a pattern that all started back in 2019. So let me walk you through the 5 things that have changed, and I'm going to tell you what I think authors need to be watching for next because there could be a 6th one coming. And even if there isn't, this is still stuff you need to know if being in Barnes Noble is important to you. So the history. First, James Daunt. Every one of these changes traces back to him. So who is James Daunt. In 2019, Elliott Advisors bought Barnes Noble for $683 million, and they brought in James Daunt to run it. He's the guy who turned around Waterstones in the UK, and before that, he ran his own small chain of independent bookstores in London. So basically, an indie bookseller took over the biggest bookstore chain in America, and the first thing he did was, well, Kind of blew up the money, which is interesting because for decades Barnes Noble was more like a real estate place selling or renting space. Barnes Noble ran on something called co-op. Publishers paid for placement. The table at the front, publisher bought it. That end cap, publisher bought it. The chain was basically a landlord renting shelf space to publishers and collecting rent. And Daunt killed all of it. In his own words, he was quoted as saying, we abandoned co-op advertising 100%. So now each store curates its own assortment, reorders books according to what its customers are actually buying, and does their own thing. Now, when this came out, I said the same thing as many other people, and that is, wow, this is so exciting for indie authors because indie authors don't have the publisher buying their way into the front of the store. And we were excited because store managers got to pick, which meant a great local book could beat a Big 5 title on merit. And in some stores, that was the case. I mean, there's a Barnes Noble in Fredericksburg in Virginia. The bookseller built a whole local author program and pairs authors up by genre and does Saturday afternoon signings. And that is kind of what a lot of us hoped would happen. But the mechanism that actually took place was instead of paid placement with curation, you now have no gatekeeper. You have many, many gatekeepers all over the place, all doing their own thing and all interpreting the guidance differently. And so essentially you went from having a buyer in New York with regional people to 800 store managers who have their own taste, their own floor plan, and don't have an obligation to say yes to any one book. Now, for us at Book Launchers, we used to have success getting our authors into a single store and having a really successful event that sold a lot of books, and then we could reach out to the regional person, point to the success of that, and they would often bring the author's books into all the stores in the region, and we could rinse and repeat. That doesn't work anymore. But let me break this down for you so you understand what's happened and what you need to do next. So again, in 2019, he came in September 2019, they stopped stocking the hardcover versions of books, only a publisher's top 2 bestsellers got the automatic shelf space, everything else had to earn it. So this meant debut and midlist authors got hit. And when this went public, a lot of authors were furious about it, especially authors of color who pointed out they already get less marketing support. But Daunt didn't back down. He said, I disagree fundamentally, and argued it lets stores do proper bookselling. But he dropped the number that explains this. Under the old model, he said, approximately 80%, 80, 8-0, percent of books were returned unsold. If a book takes up space and doesn't sell, that's an expensive book to a store. And Daunt knows it. And he's been systematically trying to change that number. So everything that he's been doing is attacking that number, because if you can turn it into 70%, 60%, they're doing so much better with the books they put on their shelf. So the second thing he did was already mentioned— end of co-op. Publishers can't buy placement. Stores order to their own customers' taste. Now, the one implication was that the floor, as in the managers on the store floor that are buying, can see when a book isn't selling and they have less patience than that regional person. A store manager watches it happen and now carefully curates books that are moving in their store. Number 3, in 2024, 2025, the online cleanup started. They started cutting off summary titles, public domain reprints, and a swath of other kinds of books from bn.com. Public domain content was banned outright with removal on site. None of the authors had done anything wrong. It's just their book stopped being worth the shelf space, even the online space, to a retailer making a business decision. And a retail listing exists because a company chooses to keep it. A library catalog record exists because an institution accepted the book into a permanent collection. Number 4, April and May 2026. Well, you cannot create a print listing on Barnes Noble Press for under $14.99. As of May 14th, existing titles under $14.99 had to be repriced or removed. Accounts with more than 100 titles can have listings removed at Barnes Noble discretion. And again, public domain uploads pulled immediately. And if you are a repeat offender, you lose your account. So this is aimed straight at volume publishing and cheap filler, but it also catches real authors too. If you wrote a short book, a novella, or A workbook. Your pricing decision, well, that just got made for you. Otherwise, you're not getting listed. Now, to today, August 2026, the events guidance, which fewer local author tables, nothing at the front, and you have to prove you have a following. It's all going to the same move, just another step. And every single change does one thing. It removes an arrangement where Barnes Noble spent money, space, or staff hours on something that wasn't selling. Selling. Hardcovers that were getting returned, placement that didn't move copies, listings nobody bought, titles priced below the cost of making it worth it to sell them, and a table by the door where an author stands for 2 hours and sells 2 books. Barnes Noble was a real estate business that happened to sell books. Daunt turned it into a bookselling business, and a bookselling business does not subsidize the author. For me, nothing changes because I have been very when I tell authors about how to get a bookstore signing. My number one step is always create your book marketing plan and go in there and tell them how you're going to bring traffic into the store. For me, I did radio interviews, emailed my list, TV appearances, and I did all of that to push people into my local signings when I was doing them. And a really good signing for me sold 20 books. So even with all of that, the book signing still doesn't sell like dozens and dozens of books. The authors who have great bookstore appearances are not ones that got store support. They're the ones who emailed 400 local people, called the paper, got on the local radio show. They posted— they had posters around town. The store was the venue, but the author and their marketing was the draw. And 20 books is a good success. So if you sell 20 books at a book signing, That's pretty good. And to a store, if those people come in and some buy a magazine or a gift or another book, that's a win for Barnes Noble. And that was always the secret to a successful bookstore event. Barnes Noble just finally wrote it down and made it a requirement for their bookstores. All right, so what do you do with this? All right, first, Daunt still has given the stores autonomy. That means the guidance will land 800 different ways. Some managers will use it as a cover to say no. Others will keep running programs like they've been running. Do not read one rejection as a national policy. Go on to the next store. Second, every requirement on their list is measuring the same thing. Can you, the author, bring people? And I don't think it ever has been this, but don't walk in asking for a table. Walk in saying, I have 900 local subscribers. Here's the email I'll send. Here's the date. Here's what I did last time. One of those things. And that's a different conversation and managers are more likely to say yes to it. Third, and this is where I think things could go, don't know, I haven't read anything that says it will, but often when a channel stops being free and easy and it has a lot of demand, it usually comes back with some sort of a fee. I wouldn't be surprised to see paid author events, paid table rentals, paid programs, or even waves of services that say they can guarantee your Barnes Noble signing for a price. Don't know, but it makes sense. And ultimately, none of this will change the math for you. Bookstores are not going to create the demand, they're going to respond to it. So it's time for you to think about how you're going to create demand. And if you want to know where you sit right now as far as whether readers are finding your book and what your metadata looks like to that bookstore, go to booklaunchers.com/auditmybook and we'll audit how discoverable your book actually is right now and show you where the gaps are. That's the same audit that tells you whether you'd survive the question a store manager is now required to ask you. And of course, after you get the audit, if you want support in filling those gaps, we have services that we can chat about. Ultimately, I'd rather compete for a spot in a store when it's actually going to sell books than get handed a table in a store that doesn't care if that moves books. The same manager who can say no can say yes. And no publisher's checkbook can outbid you for those spaces anymore. That is something worth celebrating, even if it feels like things are getting a little harder.