Training #446 – Ask us Anything and the Latest News of Note

A lot has been happening in the world of publishing this week!

The most relevant news notes, which we discussed in this Ask Us Anything session, include:

1. KDP royalties are experiencing a glitch after Amazon raises the prices without publisher input.
2. Amazon Advertising now allows trackable links for other sources, so you can see how well links from your Facebook or BookBub ads convert, or how active your newsletter or website or social media visitors are. There's no longer a need to track using affiliate links, which are not allowed outside of your website per the Amazon Associates terms of service.
3. AI narrated audiobooks now available through Kobo without needing DeepZen or another producer to distribute them for you.

We also answered:

• Bonnie Heidbrak's question about how to create AI Audiobooks.
• Loral Pepoon's questions about how to transcribe a recording and about launching a print book through Ingram Spark with a pre-order.
• Seth Pepoon's question about ranking and preorders
• Eric Klassen's question about waiting a year for print editions and a hot seat for his children's books.
• Anna Hernandez's question about keeping books in print.
• Loral's question about bundling books for sale.
• Hannu Polvi's question about using lower resolution images and the copyright implications of using them.
• Rose Marie Jones' question about what pages should be included in a children's picture book that aren't the story itself or the pictures.

We have also included a slide deck summarizing the questions, as we thought we were going to have to re-record all of our answers, but thankfully we were able to recover the original recording from this training and did not need to!

One question, about creating pre-orders for print books, that we confirmed the answer to, is that you can setup print pre-orders through Ingram Spark. Just set the “Publication Date” and the “On Sale Date” for your book for when you want the book to be available, and retailers may choose to start selling pre-orders in advance.

Just make sure that your files are ready to go at least a few weeks ahead of time as Ingram Spark may print any pre-orders in advance for shipping so that they arrive on the publication date.

Submit your book for publication in KDP Print on the publication date, and pre-orders place on Amazon should still print through KDP Print and not Ingram Spark.