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KDP now limits new titles to 2 per format per week

  1. R. S. Breed Founder

    1 week ago

    KDP's help page on title limits changed on 21 September. The new limit is 2 new titles per format per week, down from 10 per format a week.

    https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G201857950

    The key details:

    • 2 per format. The page says "2 per book format each week", so ebook, paperback and hardcover are counted separately. One new book in all three formats is one title against each format's limit, not three against one limit.
    • The week reportedly resets at Sunday 00:00 UTC. The help page doesn't say, but that's what authors are reporting (https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/591577/). For us in Australia that's 10am Sunday in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Hobart and Brisbane, 9:30am in Adelaide and Darwin, and 8am in Perth. Once daylight saving starts on 4 October, it moves to 11am in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart, and 10:30am in Adelaide. In the US it's Saturday evening, 8pm Eastern (7pm from November, when US daylight saving ends).
    • The wording about exceptions is gone. The page used to leave room for exceptions. It doesn't now. I wouldn't plan around asking for one.

    For context, KDP brought in a cap of 3 new titles a day back in September 2023, shortly after it started asking authors to disclose AI-generated content. This is a much tighter squeeze than that.

    Who does this actually affect? Most indie authors release a handful of books a year, and 2 a week per format will never come near them. The people who need to replan:

    • Rapid releasers putting out a new book plus a box set in the same week
    • Anyone republishing a backlist, for example after getting rights back from a publisher or moving titles from one account to another
    • Authors doing translations. Whether Kindle Translate editions count as new titles here, I don't know. Treat it as an open question.
    • Low-content and bulk publishers, who I suspect are the actual target

    Things I'd do if this touches you:

    1. Map out your next few months of releases by format and week before you submit anything.
    2. Stagger box sets and new releases into different weeks.
    3. Leave a slot spare in launch weeks. I don't know whether a title counts when you submit it or when it goes live, or whether a rejected file that you resubmit counts twice. Until someone confirms, assume the stricter reading.
    4. Don't try to get around it with extra accounts. I wouldn't gamble a whole catalogue on Amazon not noticing.

    As for why, the help page only says it's "to ensure a positive experience for all authors", but the timing is hard to ignore. Last week Fortune reported on a study by Stony Brook and University of Michigan researchers, not yet peer-reviewed, that found about 20% of a sample of self-published genre fiction on Amazon had substantial AI-generated text. A limit that barely touches a working author but cripples someone uploading dozens of generated books a week looks aimed squarely at that.

    Overall: fine for most authors, annoying for some legitimate edge cases, and a proper FAQ from KDP wouldn't go astray.

    If you're a rapid releaser or you're mid-way through a backlist republish, how badly does this hit your plans?

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