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Archived Author Help > How to - updated/review copy

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message 1: by Andrew (new)

Andrew (whatmatters) | 124 comments Greetings - Two questions:

You revised your ebook and uploaded to KDP, however KDP won’t allow an update available to the manage your books page on amazon, because there’s no serious damage to have it qualify under their update policy

You want those who purchased the ebook before the new revision, to have the improved ebook.
However, you’ve lost the DRM and you’re concerned about redistribution and loss of potential sales with either a mobi or PDF file. Copy/paste can travel quickly, not quite the same as a book loan. Some people have integrity and some don’t.

1) What do you think is the best approach?

No need to post anything comments about DRM can be stripped or “That’s why you want to take the time to check out your work thoroughly before publishing.” And authors have copyrights.

2) What is the best way to offer a review copy of your work?

I was thinking of dropping the kindle price to $0.00 and informing the interested party when it will be available. That way you also register a sale.

I can also make identifying changes to a review copy, as well as adding a note on the copyright page - Review Copy, not for redistribution or some such.

I’d like to get this off my mind and hear your comments.

Side note: I’d like to start a petition to have KDP allow all revisions as ‘updates’ and let the purchasers determine for themselves, if they want the new revision. That would resolve question #1. Maybe sometime down the road.


message 2: by Christina (last edited Nov 11, 2015 05:41AM) (new)

Christina McMullen (cmcmullen) Hi Andrew. If people really want the new copy, they may request a push from Amazon. Dropping the price will actually do nothing. Even if they delete the book they have, when they download, it will be the copy they previously had and if enough people do this, Amazon will investigate why you are trying to falsify sales. This could lead to your book being pulled.

Your better bet is to resend an email with examples of the changes. If there really is enough to warrant a change, you'll want to show what that is. A handful of typos won't justify the expense, but a reformat along with some grammatical fixes will.


message 3: by Andrew (new)

Andrew (whatmatters) | 124 comments Christina wrote: "Hi Andrew. If people really want the new copy, they may request a push from Amazon..."

Christina - Are you saying, if you own a prior copy and you've been informed there's a new revision, you can make a request to amazon for the new revised copy?

Side note: I’d like to start a petition to have KDP allow all revisions as ‘updates’ and let the purchasers determine for themselves, if they want the new revision.
This would make life so much easier, considering we don't have access to those who have made a purchase. If they check the "manage your books" page on amazon then they're informed that a new revision is available

Dropping the price would be for a free review copy to someone who doesn't already own it.


message 4: by Riley, Viking Extraordinaire (new)

Riley Amos Westbrook (sonshinegreene) | 1521 comments Mod
I don't know, as a book blogger, I'm more likely to ignore an author who sends me a link and tells me their book is free there. But a lot of that has to do with the messages being cut/paste, without the last reviewers name being taken out.
If you personalize it, you might get a few people that download it, but I don't click on links from anyone I don't know in email.


message 5: by Christina (new)

Christina McMullen (cmcmullen) Andrew wrote: "Christina - Are you saying, if you own a prior copy and you've been informed there's a new revision, you can make a request to amazon for the new revised copy?"

Yes. Even if Amazon doesn't push it, anyone can ask for the latest update on any kindle book.


message 6: by Charles (new)

Charles Hash | 1054 comments I got them to push my update through by doing a little tweaking to the format. I didn't pay attention to how all of that worked before I started pushing revisions through and such, so I didn't keep track of all the changes I had made. In the end, I had uploaded 6 revisions with enough overall changes to the readability of the book that they pushed the update through for me after reviewing it themselves.


message 7: by Andrew (new)

Andrew (whatmatters) | 124 comments Riley wrote: "If you personalize it, you might get a few people that download it, but I don't click on links from anyone I don't know in email. "

Thanks and i agreed, common courtesy - although I wasn't inferring a cold call, but someone who's expressed an interest.


message 8: by Andrew (last edited Nov 11, 2015 01:04PM) (new)

Andrew (whatmatters) | 124 comments Christina wrote: "Andrew wrote: "Christina - Are you saying, if you own a prior copy and you've been informed there's a new revision, you can make a request to amazon for the new revised copy?"

Yes. Even if Amazon doesn't push it, anyone can ask for the latest update on any kindle book."


Good news! Much appreciated.


message 9: by Andrew (new)

Andrew (whatmatters) | 124 comments Charles wrote: "I got them to push my update through by doing a little tweaking to the format. I didn't pay attention to how all of that worked before I started pushing revisions through and such, so I didn't keep..."


Yeah, at one time, I contacted KDP about creating a 2nd edition, but found it was impractical.


message 10: by Andreas (new)

Andreas Laurencius (andreaslaurencius) | 74 comments So Amazon doesn't tell readers if a new version of an ebook has been available, but they do inform readers if substantial changes have been made. Why? Do they pay that much for data transfer?


message 11: by Ken (new)

Ken (kendoyle) | 364 comments Andreas wrote: "So Amazon doesn't tell readers if a new version of an ebook has been available, but they do inform readers if substantial changes have been made. Why? Do they pay that much for data transfer?"

From a reader perspective (for fiction), once you've read a book, you're done. It would be mildly annoying to keep getting updates for the hundreds of books that people have on their e-readers.


message 12: by [deleted user] (new)

Andreas wrote: "So Amazon doesn't tell readers if a new version of an ebook has been available, but they do inform readers if substantial changes have been made. Why? Do they pay that much for data transfer?"

I really do hope that at least the covers update. The first cover for my first book was atrocious, and I didn't realize how bad it was until I looked at the paperback version.


message 13: by Andrew (new)

Andrew (whatmatters) | 124 comments Ken wrote: From a reader perspective (for fiction), once you've read a book, you're done. It would be mildly annoying to keep getting updates for the hundreds of books that people have on their e-readers.

True, however there are readers with long 'to read' lists and they may not have had the time for yours.
I'd like to offer the best I have. Here, it would be a benefit to both author and reader.


message 14: by Christina (new)

Christina McMullen (cmcmullen) Andreas wrote: "So Amazon doesn't tell readers if a new version of an ebook has been available, but they do inform readers if substantial changes have been made. Why? Do they pay that much for data transfer?"

Yes, there is cost involved, but what Ken said holds true as well. This is why most accounts are set to auto update as the default.

From what I can tell, the covers do automatically update because I have some books in my library that I swear, change the cover every month.


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