I’ve had to push my preorder deadline multiple times; usually incurring a blanket account ban for 1 year. The first time or two, if you ask nicely, they might forgive you. But only if you can make a big fuss about it.
But finally, they’ve allowed you to push your preorder back 30 days without a penalty. And they’ve very quietly rolled out something new:
You can now postpone a preorder twice... as long as it’s loosely related to Covid or pandemic delays, which isn’t hard to do. In one way or another, the stress of trying to meet deadlines while also dealing with lifestyle uncertainty has made things more challenging than ever.
The official rules are, you can push the preorder deadline back a month without penalty. However, I just asked if I could push it back again (based on some Facebook reports) and got this response, which makes it sound pretty standard:
“We recognize that in these difficult times you may need more flexibility to change pre-order release dates.”
“To offer some additional help, we’re temporarily adjusting our policies for pre-orders to allow you to postpone your release a second time up to 30 days without penalty.”
To delay your pre-order without penalty:
1. Delay your pre-order using the steps listed here: https://kdp.amazon.com/help/topic/G201499380#change_date
2. Reply to this email with the pre-order ASIN and we’ll remove the penalty. SO if you’re stressed and need a little more time, but don’t want to cancel all your preorders, this should work (though, of course, Amazon will probably mess up half the time).
In other words, though it’s a bit sloppy – and sometimes you may have to ask a few times to get the right help – you should request first to start the email thread, getting the permission. THEN change the dates, which is easy to do in KDP (setting it back another 30 days, even if you’ve already set it back the initial 30 days).
After that you can confirm by email with support and they should lift the ban from your account.
I was worried about this because I had another project with quite a few preorders, but so far everything still looks good.
Just thought I’d share in case you’ve been freaking out about missing a preorder deadline: it’s always hard to predict how long a book is going to take, especially if you’re also dealing with other life challenges.
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I’m a philosophy dropout with a PhD in Literature. I covet a cabin full of cats, where I can write fantasy novels to pay for my cake addiction. Sometimes I live in castles.