Barnes & Noble: We Don’t Extort Referral Links

After last Friday’s item about allegations that Barnes & Noble was telling publishers to make sure authors’ websites link to BN.com (when they link to any online retailers) or risk not getting their books ordered for the chain, we received some more comments reinforcing the story—as well as some responses indicating that there was nothing wrong with the policy if it turned out to be real: “Why do authors think B&N should support them if they won’t support it, anyway?” asked Andrew Wheeler.

According to B&N, however, that’s not what’s going on. In addition to a brief response to the original GalleyCat tweet, the company’s vice president for trade merchandising, Joe Gonnella, went to the original Smart Bitches, Trashy Books post and forcefully denied the allegations:

“Barnes & Noble does not have a policy to boycott books because authors don’t link to us.

Everything is bought in anticipation of in store or online customer orders.

We do encourage authors and publishers to link to our website as part of a comprehensive marketing approach to drive sales in all channels.”

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