Self-Published Authors Get New KDP Benefit

On August 14, 2014, Amazon announced that self-published authors can now make their new Kindle ebooks available for pre-order in Kindle stores worldwide.

This is a benefit previously available for traditionally published authors that is now being extended to self-published authors for their Kindle ebooks.

According to the announcement:

[Y]ou can create a pre-order page up to 90 days in advance of your book’s release date — your pre-order product page will be created within 24 hours.

When you make your book available for pre-order, customers can order the book anytime leading up to the release date you set. We will deliver it to them on that date.

The announcement went on to explain:

One advantage of using pre-order is that you can start promoting your Kindle book pre-order page on Author Central, Goodreads, your personal website, and other places ahead of its release to help build excitement for your book.

Also, pre-orders will contribute toward sales rank and other Kindle Store merchandising ahead of release, which can help more readers discover your book.

Authors published via KDP can go to their KDP bookshelf to set up a new book for pre-order.

And while we wait to see how much of a benefit this is for self-published authors, I’d like to put in a request to Amazon to separate out the KU and KOLL figures in the KDP dashboard, which would make these reported numbers more informative. (KU is the new Kindle monthly subscription service — click here to read more about this.)

P.S. If you have a few seconds, check out my Slipps for three of my projects on Wattpad:

http://budurl.com/TalesSlipp

http://budurl.com/MotherSlipp

http://budurl.com/NatureSlipp

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of fiction and nonfiction books/ebooks, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH AND MARKET YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF AMAZON and the romantic suspense spy thriller CIA FALL GUY.