Support for Indie Authors discussion

I just saw the Beta hardback publishing option on KDP. I'm curious to know if anyone has tried using their service to publish hardback versions of their books. Any brave pioneers out there?

I have a book in beta right now. I decided to see what was involved in it. For some reason I expected the maximum pages to be higher (as I was going to use it as a compendium of a duet and thus it would be two, two, two books in one).

It is interesting that the cover is different than the B&N cover which is a wrap around so you have to account for that.

Note that because it is another entity, you have to give it a separate ISBN (or ASN).

I'll post in this thread if I complete it in the near future

The page limit for hardcover is 550 pages.
My book is 680 in paperback so I guess I'll sit that one out.

The page limit for hardcover is 550 pages.
My book is 680 in paperback so I guess I'll sit that one out.


1. Impressive.
2. Margin and/or font reduction or size increase? Just a thought.

Ubiquitous wrote: "I just saw the Beta hardback publishing option on KDP. I'm curious to know if anyone has tried using their service to publish hardback versions of their books. Any brave pioneers out there?"

I was just looking at this myself. I haven't tried it yet because the hassle of setting it up seems like well... a hassle, but I'd love to hear from some other folks about their experiences with it.

I have added a hardcover edition for two books and I was very pleased with the results! It is a bit of a hassle getting them set up, but I do plan to publish hardcover editions for my remaining titles.

Good to know it can be done. I'll wait until I have time to tackle the hassle.

Mark wrote: "Margin and/or font reduction or size increase? Just a thought."

It could be possible, but I probably won't consider it unless I get some decent momentum with my book. Considering I'm at 2 sales, 2 KU reads, and 12 free downloads over the 11 months since the launch of e-book, and 0 paperback sales, paying for another size of the cover adjusted for hardcover would be a waste of money. So, if I push through at some point, maybe.

Tomas wrote:
"It could be possible, but I probably won't consider it unless I get some decent momentum with my book."

Completely understandable.

Well, the fact is that trying to promote book 1 in a future trilogy when I, despite my best tries, won't release book two sooner than late 2022 and book three in (probably) 2024 would have dubious efficiency. Many of the people would forget who the hell I am by the time the next book is out, hence I'll be saving some money on the side and try to give book 1 a nudge 5-6 months before book 3 is ready to be released, then bump book two 2-3 months ahead. That sounds like a good plan to me.

Whether it'll happen to be a good plan... ask me in 3 years. If it goes well, then I'll consider a hardcover. And by that time, Amazon will weed out all the bugs it may have *grins*.

Best to fix any of those issues now or you won't get momentum. I'm always resubmitting my books when I see a grammar error. If you get a bad review from a misformatted book, it could really hurt your sales in the long run.

Tomas wrote: "Well, the fact is that trying to promote book 1 in a future trilogy when I, despite my best tries, won't release book two sooner than late 2022 and book three in (probably) 2024 would have dubious ..."

I hear you. I didn't release the first book in my superhero series until the fourth and final book was written. That way I was able to sprinkle in foreshadowing as the story evolved. Once all four were written, I released one every six months for two years. The schedule was more for budgetary reasons than building hype. I'm still trying to solve that problem.

Thanks for your comments. I'm in a similar position with some of you. Since I do my own covers, I may experiment with setting up a couple of hardback books in a few weeks.

Ubiquitous wrote: "Thanks for your comments. I'm in a similar position with some of you. Since I do my own covers, I may experiment with setting up a couple of hardback books in a few weeks."

Thanks to your initial question (and my intense curiosity) two of my books are now available in hard cover, with the prequel I just released this week becoming available in hardcover by next week.

Thank you for the spark!

Hmmmm, I thought the beta was supposed to be on the hush...

Barnes & Noble has the better hardcover. I have one of my books in hardcover from Amazon and it's okay. Laminate isn't what I'm used to. B&N's slipcover is great. I'm not going to bother with Amazon's hardcover until they get a slip cover.

Please note, Amazon and B&N are distributors. If your ISBN covers a hardcover you can use it for both. They say you can't but when I pushed, they caved.

Robert said: "I have one of my books in hardcover from Amazon and it's okay. Laminate isn't what I'm used to. B&N's slipcover is great. I'm not going to bother with Amazon's hardcover until they get a slip cover."

Interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing for myself and have ordered all three books (in my fiction line that is) as hard covers.

Regarding the slipcover maybe I am the odd man out on this but I've always thought it less impressive that a completely blank book just has something wrapped around it vs. something printed and bonded directly on the cover. I know that this is the traditional way it is done. Probably just me.

"Please note, Amazon and B&N are distributors. If your ISBN covers a hardcover you can use it for both. They say you can't but when I pushed, they caved."

I always thought that every iteration of a book (paperpack, audiobook, hard cover, ebook) had to have a separate ISBN?

All my books have proper ISBNs from Alchemy publishing, though I chose the special ASIN from Amazon for the hard cover options because I didn't see any reason not to.

Can you clarify/expand your statement please? I'm very interested.

Thanks!

Sure, an iteration is exactly what you referred to. However, a hardcover is hardcover is a hardcover, it doesn't matter who prints it or who distributes it. When you register an ISBN, you choose the media from a drop-down list. Choose hardcover (or paperback) and use the same ISBN for Amazon and B&N (as long as they have the same dimensions, content, and cover). They will both tell you they have to be unique, but they don't. My audiobook is a common file type and the ISBN is the same for ITunes, Amazon, Audible, and that other place I can never remember the name of.

So to clarify, your hardcover will have one ISBN. Your paperback a different ISBN, etc.

Using Amazon's ASIN for the hardcover is fine. As you said, no reason not to.

Thank you, Robert.

Funny that I never paid any mind to my audiobook having just one ISBN and going through so many distribution channels but was concerned about the other forms of media.

Thank you very much for the clarification. Much appreciated.

Yup :)

Robert wrote: "Hmmmm, I thought the beta was supposed to be on the hush...

Barnes & Noble has the better hardcover. I have one of my books in hardcover from Amazon and it's okay. Laminate isn't what I'm used to...."

That ISBN is good everywhere. The ASIN Amazon wants you to use is only good on their site. I'd encourage all writers to use their own ISBNs and imprint. The ISBN is worldwide, but you do need a different one for an ebook in mobi, epub and PDF (One for each format), a paperback, a hardcover, and the audio book. On Amazon, I let them use their ASIN for the e-book but not the paperback so I don't have to pay for that extra ISBN. It's a cost thing though Amazon is doing away with the MOBI format from what I understand and accepting e-pubs.

too bad on the mobi's. I have an old kindle and I download the mobi file to see how it looks on my kindle. Now, I have to take my file to D2D for a mobi file. It's not quite the same.
The same goes for my beta reader so she can read it on her kindle.

I just published 2 titles in hardback using KDP yesterday. They're available live, so I tried to order an author copy of each one. Unfortunately, there's no option to order from the US. I can only order author copies from Germany, Italy, France or Spain. Since I'm in the US and the book is available in the US, this seems like a strange problem. Perhaps it's a Beta quirk, but it seems like a big one. Maybe I need to give it a couple of days and then try again.

Ubiquitous wrote: "They're available live, so I tried to order an author copy of each one. Unfortunately, there's no option to order from the US. "

Congratulations! You went from inquiring about brave pioneers to becoming one in only a week. :)

The problem you experienced is the same that I did initially.

You are correct. Sometimes the order author copies and the ability to order as a customer are out of sync. In the three books I just published in hard cover one worked perfectly, one was available to customers but not for me, and the third had the opposite problem. It all worked out in the end though.

I actually contacted support and they said that happens from time to time... So give it a day-ish...

Ubiquitous wrote: "I just published 2 titles in hardback using KDP yesterday. They're available live, so I tried to order an author copy of each one. Unfortunately, there's no option to order from the US. I can only ..."

I had the same problem with one hardback. The first time the market showed the US. I didn't know there was a deadline to purchase the proof and they sent me a notice I waited more than the 24 hours and to try again. I did, but like you, it wouldn't list the US market. I sent them a message and I'll see if they reply.
Today I did six books and ordered the US proofs immediately. No problem.

I have published six books. All have hardbacks through IngramSpark. Setting up the hardbacks with KDP would provide a pricing advantage. I ran a test on one book. The results were very disappointing. When I put the HB from Ingram alongside the HB from KDP, Ingram was clearly the better book. The colors on the KDP book were dull and the binding at the spine poor. Which was surprising as I have found that books with color interiors, ie. children's books, are much better, paper and color tones, than the same book from Ingram.

I was quite happy with my HB version of one of my books. I would have preferred the option of adding a dust jacket, but maybe that will come later.

To be honest, I was quite impressed with KDP's hardbacks. The colors are reasonably good and the quality not too shabby. That said, I haven't tried IngramSpark yet, so I've nothing to compare it to other than trade hardbacks. Hopefully they add more options in future (size, dust jackets etc) as for now it's quite limited.

I briefly toyed around with it, but trying to re-work and re-size my paperback cover to match the hardcover specs was proving too big a pain in the butt, so I stopped. I didn't even really want to set it up to have it available for sale (I don't even sell any paperbacks, so I doubt I'd have any better luck with the hardcovers); I just wanted a hardcover copy to have on my shelf.

While I was happy with the first HB cover I made on Amazon, the 2nd book had issues, mostly in how it was shipped (no bubble wrap protection) and it arrived damaged. Amazon unfortunately, doesn't seem to have a KDP customer service anymore (or at least one that is easy to locate on the site) to voice my complaint.
I will continue to use them as a hardback source (at least until lD2D) gets a hardback book program going.