Amazon has announced via Seller Central that they will be slowing book delivery to prioritize medical and food delivery in the US and EU markets. Amazon says, “We are temporarily prioritizing household staples, medical supplies and other high-demand products coming into our fulfillment centers so that we can more quickly receive, restock, and ship these products to customers.”
What does that mean for authors and book sales during the COVID-19 crisis?
1. Amazon Customers will be heading for Kindle eBooks instead of paperbacks
There are no health risks for digital downloads. So, many readers will prefer this method in the foreseeable future.
2. eBook promotion is essential for all authors right now
Running promos for your KDP titles will help sales immensely. Get on it now by browsing our Amazon Promos, or get a book review to start using on social media while everyone is clicking about at home.
3. Offering eBooks where your paperback is on Amazon is your top priority
Make sure you have linked your eBook and your paperback titles, and you have them all listed with your author bio.
How to link your books: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200652220
Get yourself an Author Page on Amazon here: https://authorcentral.amazon.com/
4. Make sure readers know they can get your book elsewhere, i.e. direct from your website. (Bear in mind sending readers to bookshops instead is not going to work.)
With most of the EU in lockdown and all bookshops closed and the US headed the same way, you need to get creative. Have you got some author copies knocking about? Offer them on your website or social media. There seems little point on counting on author copies from Amazon coming through, but you may as well order some. Better one delayed delivery to you than loads of delayed deliveries to readers. At least then you may be able to fulfill orders from home. Check with your other suppliers, such as Ingram or Author Solutions, and see if they are fulfilling orders normally before offering books to buyers.
5. Let readers know you have an eBook on sale instead
If you have a mailing list or social media platform, let readers know you have an eBook on sale by writing a short post with a nice photo of your eBook cover and link to the eBook page.
What do you mean you don’t have an eBook?
We’ll make you an eBook from your paperback file (Word) and current book cover file (any format). Buy this service here.
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Good advice. Keep in mind that quite a few of the books that Amazon sells aren’t shipped by Amazon. Used books typically come directly from used-book dealers. Ingram Spark/LSI POD books are shipped directly from Ingram. Is Amazon steering potential customers to either? In cases where there are POD versions from Amazon and Ingram, is Amazon steering the Amazon orders it cannot handle to Ingram as a source?
I leave it to some of you to check this out. I gave up following the fortunes of my books on Amazon long ago.
Yes, but this article is about new books published by Amazon KDP, i.e. those fulfilled by Amazon. As a private company, Amazon has no responsibility to send customers to other shops for titles, so it will be up to authors to do it themselves.