Recently KDP implemented what appears to be a small,
but potentially significant impact to low content book publishing
on Amazon.
So we're going to look at this in more depth and see what the implications are,
going forward. Now,
if you not be channel before then welcome my name's Paul Marles and I do videos
and how to make it, keep it and grow it.
And that's your money I'm talking about? So,
in this recent announcement from KDP,
they said they are no longer going to be providing free
ISBN numbers to low content book publishers. You'll have two options,
either to have your book published with no ISBN number or
to purchase your own ISBN number on which to publish
your book. They also defined what they see,
for this purpose, as being low content books.
And they say it's those books with repetitive interior content,
such as notebooks, planners, and journals.
And this does not apply to books that have different content
on different pages, such as activity books, puzzle books, coloring books,
handwriting books, scissor skills, books. You get the idea.
So here we are in the KDP dashboard,
I've just entered some information for the book, title, subtitle, author name,
description, and keywords.
And it was the same information as I did for a recent book that I showed you how
to publish on Amazon. And, as normal,
you select your categories. But in this category box,
we now have this option here where you can choose whether
this is a low content book. You tick the box,
or it's not a low content book. As I said, for normal line journals,
notebooks and planners, you would tick this box.
If you did try and publish one of these types of books and didn't click
the low content book, it says that your book would be rejected,
but wouldn't have any impact on your account.
And I suspect the same may apply if you did choose low content book
and actually it was something like a coloring book you may run into the same
issue with regards getting your book rejected.
So you would then save and continue,
which takes us onto the next page and in the ISBN box we
now have these options. One,
to publish without an ISBN or to use your own
ISBN. And here you would enter the details of your own ISBN number.
If you were to choose your own ISBN number, what does this mean? Well,
it means you would have to purchase them yourself.
Now I know in a previous email, that Amazon sent out,
they did mention a company called Bowker.
So I went over there and had a look and is at this site here at
myidentifiers.com.
So it tells us price of ISBN numbers.
And you have all these different options here. If it's just one ISBN,
you're going to be charged $125. If you buy 10, $295.
That's around about $29.50 for an ISBN number, but it's not around that.
It's exactly that. And the more you purchase the cheaper it is.
So this is a pretty significant cost if you are purchasing your own ISBN
numbers. Remember this doesn't apply for coloring books, et cetera,
as Amazon will still be providing your free ISBN number.
So if you didn't want to do that, you would then publish without an ISBN.
You may say, fair enough. I'll just do that. It'll all be okay. However,
this does have implications and we'll have a look here on the KDP help page
because now they've got a page specifically for low content
books, where again, it defines what a low content book is.
And these are the implications here of publishing without an ISBN number.
Now it says your book won't be eligible for expanded distribution,
which has actually has been in place for quite some time.
But it defines now that it's just those things like notebooks, journals,
planners that won't be eligible for expanded distribution.
Will this make much difference? Well, I don't think so, because
in my account, anyway,
the number of sales I get from expanded distribution is quite small compared to
my overall sales. As I've mentioned before,
I just see this as like a bit of extra cream on top of the sales
that you do get.
So I don't think it will have a significant impact in the amount of royalties
you get. And also books published on expanded distribution,
have smaller amounts in terms of the royalties.
Now the next implication is this,
the look inside feature won't be available for those
low content books published without an ISBN number,
and we'll discuss the impact of this.
But I think this is probably the most significant thing. And the other thing is,
transparency codes won't appear on your books. Now,
I didn't know what a transparency code was.
So I went and had a look in the help section and on some books,
KDP will put this QR code on the back of your book,
which is what they call a transparency code. And when customers scan this code,
it gives them more information about you as a publisher or author,
and about the book itself.
And apparently this isn't done on all books anyway, but yeah,
bit of useful information, something new that I learned.
So you've basically got two options,
if you are going to publish these types of books.
One is to publish with an ISB number that you've purchased and
two it's to publish without an ISBN number.
So what are the implications of this? Why would Amazon do this? Well.
I thought maybe they've done it to help reduce costs
because I don't know whether they're paying for all these free ISBN numbers that
they've been giving away.
So imagine you've got these people that are producing hundreds of these types of
books. It may be costing Amazon money to do this.
I don't think it's going to have much of an implication with regards expanded
distribution because the amount in royalties you get compared to overall
royalties is very small.
What I do think it may have an implication on is those publishers that
are spamming the system with hundreds of books a day.
And the reason is this. It's because of the lack of look inside feature.
Now I know when I go and look at books, purchase books off Amazon,
I always look at the look inside feature because you want to know what you're
buying. So I suspect that's the same for all purchasers on Amazon.
So if you can't look at the book inside, it's going to put customers off.
So may put publishers off spaming Amazon,
if there's less chance of them getting a sale. But as a serious publisher,
how would you overcome this? Well,
you could still publish without the ISBN number and without the look inside
feature,
but create A+ plus content for your book so that you could showcase
your book in more detail and showcase the interiors of your books.
Now that will be neigh on impossible for spamer to do because it'd have to
create this content for each individual book.
Maybe they'll come across some system or develop some system in the future.
I don't know. So that's my thoughts on it.
They've done it hopefully to reduce the amount of spam that gets
published on Amazon. But I'll be very grateful for your thoughts,
your opinions, what implications you think this may have,
because I'm sure there's some there that I've not even thought about.
If you do have any, please let me know in the comments below. Now,
if you are new to publishing books on Amazon,
then I suggest watching my playlist next,
where I run through all the steps of creating and publishing these types of
books on KDP. Thank you very much for your time.
It is really very much appreciated.
Don't forget to hit the subscribe button and until next time. Goodbye.