I’m stealing an information letter from Amy Atwell, but I don’t think she’ll mind my sharing with writers, authors, and interested readers. It’s general information she searches out and shares.
Phishing / Spam Emails
I received an email regarding a Moderna Vaccine Survey. It was addressed to an email address I don’t actually have, but copied to one of my Gmail addresses. There were at least 3 different Unsubscribe buttons. I didn’t click anything (don’t even click the unsubscribe buttons on these things!). I just marked it as Junk/Spam and deleted from my computer.
Amazon’s Transparency Codes on print bar codes:
Amazon adding transparency codes to KDP book covers to boost engagement
And, in keeping with Amazon wanting to add a QR code and track physical books (and people who scan them), if you don’t want KDP to generate your bar code (and include their own transparency code), you can now generate a bar code to give to your cover artist and have them incorporate it into your cover art. On KDP, there’s a box to click to let them know that you’re including a bar code in your cover art so they don’t generate their own.
Free ISBN Bar Code Generator, courtesy of Kindlepreneur:
https://kindlepreneur.com/isbn-bar-code-generator/
Apple Holiday Delivery Times
As they always do, Apple is reminding you to upload books well in advance during the holidays. Apple still tends to close down for the Christmas holidays, so remember that their could be a few days where processing is slow or the iTunes Connect dashboard goes offline.
Basically, starting in early November, work toward uploading your eBooks or pre-programming price changes 2 weeks in advance. If you plan to release a book during the first week of January, you should upload that content 3 weeks in advance so it doesn’t sit on a server while the Apple Books staff is off enjoying the holidays.
Draft2Digital Promotional Pricing — all currencies, start and end dates.
If you’re logged in as the admin/owner of the account, you can preset promotional pricing in advance, just as you do at Apple, Kobo and BN.
All retailers are encouraging you to order NOW if you need printed books by Christmas.
Expect the delivery delays to be real this holiday season.