Question about not yet published books...

[Jennifer]

Hi there, librarians! I'm an author's assistant and I'm hoping you can help me understand this better, to explain to my clients...

All my clients are indie authors and publish through Amazon KDP (and sell wide through other sites as well).

My clients often don't have an exact release date until a couple of months before the book actually releases. But I would love to add their books to Goodreads as soon as they release their cover and back blurb.

So my question is this: Will it mess up information in the system if we go ahead and add the book now without the ISBN & release date, and then add that info later? Publishing through KDP, I wasn't sure if it would end up adding a duplicate entry, once Goodreads picks up the info from Amazon?

I hope this is even making sense! Let me know if I need to be more clear. :)

Thank you! :)

[Dobby]

When the Amazon bot imports a new edition, it searches first for an ISBN/ASIN identifier. If none exists, the bot imports the edition with the appropriate identifier.

You can add a book without an ISBN/ASIN identifier. If you don't add the identifier before the Amazon bot imports the book, the edition you added will become a duplicate, and you'll have to ask a librarian to merge it with the correct edition. That does create additional work for the volunteer librarians.

To avoid that scenario, add the ISBN/ASIN to the record as soon as it's been issued. I strongly suggest adding a release date when you create the entry, even if it's an estimated date. That can be easily changed, and it keeps the book from looking like an "empty" edition.

[Jennifer]

Dobby wrote: "When the Amazon bot imports a new edition, it searches first for an ISBN/ASIN identifier. If none exists, the bot imports the edition with the appropriate identifier.

You can add a book without an..."

Okay, thank you so much for explaining this to me! I'll make a note to add ISBNs/ASINs here on Goodreads before publication!