Amazon KDP Print pre-schedule feature is NOT a pre-order | Amazon KDP Updates 2023 | KDP Fail
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- Well, I WAS excited about this announcement. Until I read the fine print.
Two weeks ago Amazon KDP announced that authors can now pre-schedule print releases. I was so excited, thinking that we FINALLY got the print pre-order.
But it is NOT a pre-order. It is a way to schedule the release day, the print listing will not show on Amazon.com for purchase until the release date. So we still don’t get a true print pre-order via Amazon KDP.
Okay, so status quo.
Not really. I think this is going to make things worse. Here’s why.
I see a lot of authors making note of this and pre-scheduling the release. Then, oh, still not a preorder, let me go my usual route through IngramSpark to do the print pre-order. But when IngramSpark goes to push that print metadata for the preorder to Amazon.com, they already have the listing scheduled to release later. So no print pre-order at all.
Yes, some very savvy and careful authors will know to avoid this, but as we all know, first-time authors (and even us seasoned authors) have a lot to do. I foresee this being a much bigger customer service headache and a big issue for us authors who just want to have one simple and clear call to action.
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Here is my playlist on all things Amazon KDP: ua-cam.com/video/fBYvXteLRHk/v-deo.html
THANKS, M.K. What a ridiculous process... so misleading... just had an industry vet explain it all. Given how absurd the UX is, and how easy it would be to code a solution, and (as you point out) that it's in everyone's best interest to allow pre-orders of print and e-book at the same time... well, two thoughts: 1. the product manager for this at Amazon is not the sharpest knife (even if it's a legacy code problem, WAIT until you can solve it) and 2. you just KNOW junior team members sat in the room when they decided to release like this shaking their heads. Let's hope one of them rises to a position where they can solve this schmozzle.
Agreed. It is totally solvable and will ensnare more authors than it helps
I was so upset when I discovered that this feature is not a pre-order. For those who have already set up your paperback in amazon and want to undo it, and unpublished it, I believe there is a way to unlink the paperback and ebook, and then delete/unpublish/archive the paperback and start over...I've done this several times for other reasons, but I'm hoping it works here too, so that anyone who fell for this (scam?? thanks Amazon) can re-group and change their method.
Thank you for the tip. Let us know how this works and if you see any issues on release day from that method
Great video and well explained. This is soooo Amazon...haha. An attempt, but not well thought out :(
Agreed! And the roll out email was a little deceptive on the potential benefits. I'm hoping they'll fix this soon 🤞🤞🤞
Hi 👋 I have a novel and poetry book I plan to self publish and am in the research stage. Am I understanding correctly that the best way to do preorders is as follows: 1) do not use Amazons pre schedule option 2) publish paperbacks through Ingram Spark 3) publish ebooks through Amazon KDP? How do the Ingram Spark paperback sales show up on Amazon KDP? I feel overwhelmed lol
Congratulations on your books! IngramSpark distributes to Amazon. So you can schedule a preorder for a print book using IngramSpark and it will show up for preorder or Amazon. I have no idea why KDP won't offer this, it is so ridiculous but if you want a print pre-order that's your option
Okay, so, I'm an author that has not yet explored the idea of going wide, with paperbacks, but I'm interested in this 'presheduling' scheduling thing. My reason for being interested in pre-scheduling is in hope that I can have paperback copies, on hand, when my book goes live, for in-person marketing reasons, but based upon Amazon's description on the topic, it's not clear to me whether I'll be able to use this feature to order paperback copies and them on hand by the time the book goes live. Do you have any insights on this?
Yes, I believe with the pre schedule you CAN order your author copies early. But no one else can
@@1MKWilliams Okay, good. Amazon's wording is a little confusing. At one point, it suggests that you can order author copies, but there's some kind of disclaimer about five the 'five day window' that confuses their intention and I'm not sure what they're talking about.
Yeah, not a preorder. With the way you've broken it down, it almost feels like Amazon is trying to dupe authors into using this pre-schedule feature so they don't go through Ingram for the preorder. Sometimes people will throw in the towel when things become difficult, and Amazon makes it seemingly so much easier (even if you miss out on features, like preorders). I think they did this on purpose but maybe I'm jaded by businesses in using practices to benefit themselves. Thanks for the video!
Agreed. Honestly, I think they were trying to help and thought this would be an interim step to gauge true interest in the preorders. They don't know the intricacies of how IngramSpark works so they're not thinking from the point of view of wide authors, they're trying to appease amazon only authors
DASTARDLY! And agree.
Insightful video! Thank you! How do you ensure the Ingram book on Amazon gets listed as prime? (Do you know typical shipping speeds if it doesn’t default to prime?)
I do not know, I don't have prime so I haven't been able to test that with my books
So glad I saw this video! I'm almost ready to set up a pre-order and I was going to do the Ingram to KDP print pre-order option and pray that they sync correctly. One question I had is this - on KDP, should I leave the paperback in draft status the whole time? Meaning I keep the "Release my book for sale now" option selected (instead of a scheduled date), but simply do not hit publish until ~a few days before the actual publishing date? This is what will allow for the Ingram print pre-order to filter to KDP, right?
Correct. Honestly I wouldn't even input any paperback information into KDP until you are ready to set it live just in case
@@1MKWilliams Ok good to know, thank you! I had already put some paperback info into KDP but I will stop now haha. Does my KDP ebook need to be set for pre-order for the Ingram paperback pre-order to feed properly over to Amazon? Or should that just happen regardless of ebook status?
@@technicolormyworld should work regardless of eBook status
AGGGHHHH! Thank you for explaining this. I've started marketing for pre-orders thinking Amazon was just lagging behind, so sending everyone to B&N. I thought by uploading to IS it would be offered as a pre-order on Amazon as well. I'm so frustrated. Any ideas of what to do?
Hmmm since the preorder is already live elsewhere and saved in Amazon KDP I'm not sure what else you can do now. Keep sending people to the other sites where the preorder is showing. Best of luck!
@@1MKWilliams Here’s a response from KDP. If you set a publish date there’s no access to IS preorders on Amazon.
In this case, you can remove the release of your book on our end, which will not create any issues with the one that you have on Instagram.
If you request to unpublish the book, please know that if you go with that route, the ISBN that you have assigned to your book cannot be reused on another book that you will be creating. You won’t be able to change an ISBN once it’s assigned; this is to keep up with industry standards established by the International ISBN Agency.
@@JennySmithRollsOn yep, that's what I expected. I'm really hoping I can get this message in front of more authors before they pre schedule so that they don't get into this situation
Hello, I'm a new author and was wondering if there is expensive doing both?
Doing both what? Doing both ebook and paperback? Or doing both KDP and IngramSpark?
Hey, MK, got a potentially interesting question for you! If you want to give a discount for people buying my paperback series, but I'm not selling direct through my website or packaging a physical box set, what are my options? Anything through D2d print, by chance? Thank you in advance! :) This is one of those why-i-love-in-person-selling-better questions...
Hi Margaret, So I don't use D2D Print, I use IngramSpark. But... D2D print is serviced through Lightning Source so my guess is the process works the same. Price changes go into effect once a week with IS so that may be the same with D2D. I don't believe there is an easy "make the price X for these specific dates" I think it is manual. But it CAN be done. I'd just make it a month-long promo so the systems have time to catch it both going down and coming back up.
Ah, that is not the point I was asking about, actually. I mean a bundle sale. Like buy all 3 in the series, get a discount. I can do that with an ebook bundle, but I don't think I've seen people do it with physical books unless they're physically packed in a box, which is out of my price range. Why I thought it would be an interesting Q!@@1MKWilliams
@@MargaretPinard that I do not know. I've not done any bundles yet
Oh!@@1MKWilliams Really? OK, I'll keep sleuthing and see if I can find a way and report back! :DDD
This sounds unfeasibly complicated......
It is. It makes no sense why Amazon lets us do an eBook preorder with no issues and won't do the print. If you're wanting to do a print preorder I recommend leveraging IngramSpark
something i'm struggling with understanding is if i can order an author copy before my book is actually out on amazon. my book is scheduled to come out next month and it is giving me the option to order author copies. will i actually get them before my book is live on amazon, or will they wait to until it is live?
I've never ordered author copies before the book is out. My understanding was an author could only order proofs before the print book was out via Amazon KDP.