With the recent publishing of my new book in both print and Kindle formats I had to go through several extra steps one doesn’t normally go through when publishing just print or just eBook books. Even though I used CreateSpace, Amazon’s print-on-demand (POD) service, to publish my print edition, most of the points covered in this checklist should apply to your situation.
1. If you don’t have an AuthorCentral account you need to set one up, immediately. Add your books to your account.
2. Login to your AuthorCentral account and ask them via email to “link” the print and Kindle editions together. It takes 1 to 3 days for this to go into effect and you have to initiate it. Now when someone visits your book page on Amazon.com both formats will be visible.
3. Get “Look Inside the Book” working for your print book ASAP. Until you do, shoppers are going to be looking at the Kindle version of your book. Usually the print version is nicer looking plus you have your book’s back cover to show off. More importantly, Amazon indexes your book’s content and uses it when people search for phrases. This is a multi-step process which requires you to have a Seller Central account. Begin by visiting this page. It can get confusing so take it a step at a time.
4. If you are using your own ISBN, or you paid for this option with Amazon, you need to visit Bowker Identifier Services and update the account information. I used the $10 ISBN option in CreateSpace which allowed me to connect that ISBN to my Bowker account. When I visited my Bowker account I saw that the description that was entered from my CreateSpace book description field was unreadable because I used HTML. There was also lots of information missing. Since this metadata is critical to getting your book discovered you need to fix or enter your updates as soon as possible.
Bonus: Those are the main first steps for Amazon. Now its time to file your copyright.
Are there some immediate launch steps you think I left out? Let me know below.
