Have you been researching, creating and publishing your books on Amazon KDP and are wondering when your product is finally going to go live?

After all, your book should be live within 24-72 hours as they tell you on the final upload page.

So what gives?

Well, a lot has changed over the past several months at Amazon, and we are here to discuss them!

So strap in and let’s talk KDP!

Longer Review Times Are Normal

You may have noticed that for the past several months, you may have had some of your low or no content books stuck in the review process for much longer than 72 hours.

In fact, we have heard reports that in some rare cases, it has taken 2 weeks or longer for something to go live.

We are here to report, that this is actually normal, but for good reason.

Think about it…

Amazon was designed for “high content” publishers to distribute their work to a global audience. These type of books take weeks, months, or even years to write, edit, edit again, format, and then publish.

What Amazon did NOT expect was the mass influx of low content books being published where some authors are publishing more than 1 book per DAY.

As low content book sellers, publishing a few books per day does not seem like that big of a deal, and it really isn’t, but this is a far cry from a publisher releasing 1 book every few months.

Their system was not designed for this, and even though KDP has been around for longer than a decade at this point, they may get backed up.

Dale Roberts actually just published a really great video on this a while back that describes a few of the major changes that have recently happened:

Just like him, we recommend that if your book is not live within 72 hours, do not panic. Simply give Amazon some time to catch up on their backlog, and your book will eventually go live.

These longer review times are completely normal as the publishing space has changed.

Low Content Book Checkbox

We have been in the KDP business for 10 years at this point, and up until this point, KDP has been very quiet about publishing low content books.

Dale goes into this in the video above, and it has finally happened!

Amazon has finally acknowledged us low content book sellers (although they do not think that activity, coloring, or puzzle books are low content).

With them finally putting a page about the type of books we publish on their site, this comes with a few small changes.

The biggest changes?

Well, you now have to select a check box that you are in fact publishing low content.

If you are publishing books that ARE low content, you MUST check this box.

Pause….read that again, and just do it!

The reason being, if you try to sneak one past, KDP will reject your book and you will be at square 1 again.

The second change, if you select that low content check box, you can publish without an ISBN.

ISBNs cost Amazon money, but they are allowing us to publish on their platform anyway.

Sounds great right?

It is, but this change means that since you are publishing low content, there is no more “look inside feature”.

No Look Inside Feature On Amazon KDP For Low Content

We have gotten a LOT of very upset self publishers asking questions about this in our Book Bolt weekly calls lately.

Fret not though, there is an easy way around this.

While most customers are actually not clicking on the “look inside” feature, this has been a staple in the Amazon KDP business for as long as we can remember. But that changed, and that’s okay!

In fact, there are 2 great ways to greatly increase your sales just from making 2 small changes.

A+ Content

The first change that you can implement today is called A+ Content.

This gives you an “about the publisher” section under your product page which allows you to add images, and text.

Not only will this make your product page a lot better, but it lets your customer see exactly what they will be getting.

When customers can envision what they will be getting BEFORE they get it, you can certainly bet that this will increase the amount of conversions from the product page.

Yes, this takes a bit longer, but is well worth it when it comes to building up your brand and business.

We have actually published a guide on exactly how to implement A+ Content here:

How To Add Images to Your KDP Listings

Adding Interior Pages To Your Cover

Does A+ Content not really fit with your book, or you do not want to spend the time doing it?

Do you still want the customer to know what the inside of your low content book looks like without making a bunch of changes?

Well, there is an easy solution for this as well!

By reworking the cover of your books to include what the inside looks like.

Sound complicated? It really isn’t.

Let’s take a look at some examples!

As you can see, these are covers for different books in different niches.

Each one of them has made use of their cover to give the potential customer an idea of what is inside, directly on their cover.

There is really no need to worry about the “look inside” feature going away, as there are two excellent options to overcome this!

Wrapping It Up

The self publishing space is alive and thriving, but there have been some small changes.

We wanted to put together this article so that you are aware of them, and to put your mind at ease that everything is going to be alright.

Review times have gotten a bit longer, but this is completely normal. We expect that as Amazon moves forward and has now acknowledged us, this will get better over time.

Yes, there have been some changes to the way we publish low content books, but we still have excellent tools at our disposal to make more sales in our business with just a few small tweaks.

Good luck out there and have fun publishing your next few books!