CompletelyNovel

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Oliver - Lord of the reads: +3092

24 May 17:44

Thanks Ben!

The short answer is it normally takes around 2 weeks but can take up to 6 weeks for a book to become available on Amazon.

I would suggest getting a proof copy as soon as possible after publishing as it is much easier to spot thing you might want to change when you have the book in the flesh.

A bit of background about what happens to get a book onto Amazon if you’re interested:
1. CN Book Creator helps prepare print ready files
2. When all the details are ready (book info, ISBN, categories, distribution price) then we update Nielsen (the ISBN agency) with your title.
3. After a week the book is normally ready on their system and retailers and wholesalers can take a feed and start displaying it on their catalogues.
4. At this point the book is still ‘out of print’ as it has no wholesaler set behind it to fulfill orders to the retailers. To fulfill orders we load your book files onto Lightning Source (LS) distribution to serve as the wholesaler.
5. LS can take a couple of weeks to approve the files and after approval they list it as available to the retailers.
6. The major retailers take feeds from LS regularly but even Amazon can take a week or two to update all their listings.
Once this cycle is complete the book will be available to purchase at most retailers.

Normally this all happens within a couple of weeks but I’ve had a few case recently where LS have taken a couple of weeks to approve the files.

Hope that helps,

Oli

ps. The eBooks are downloaded from the orders page /my/orders. If there is any trouble downloading ask them to get in touch and I’ll send instructions.
Benjamin - Page ranger: +52

24 May 18:35

Hi Oliver.

Thanks for much for the thorough answer, as am I am an nosy bugger I did enjoy the detailed answer. ;)

Well at least I have an idea now and can stop the “couple of days…” malarky. I have directed most people to this site directly anyways.

Thanks again mate for the great service on here. :)
Susan - Page ranger: +49

27 May 08:50

Thank you as well, I’m the same, I’ve been telling everyone it will be available in a couple of weeks. Oops!
David - Wordsworth: +415

23 Jun 00:40

I am still checking Amazon daily and I am almost at 5 weeks since my book was “published” – are we sure that 6 weeks is a max?
1
Susan - Page ranger: +49

23 Jun 10:25

Thanks David. So I can expect to wait another few weeks then. I also didn’t realise that completely novel didnt do colour illustrations so I have to completely change my poetry book now! Not happy!
Hi Susan, sorry to dissapoint. I’ll look at ways to make this clearer earlier on. The cover is of course full colour but the book block (manuscript) can only be greyscale right now.

We aim to offer colour illustrations at some point but we haven’t yet due to the high cost of colour printing.

The cost of colour printing is about 5x that of a greyscale page. If you wish to have colour pages both LS and CPI will print the entire book from a colour press. That means every page is printed from a colour printer whether it is a full colour image or just black text. As each page is 5x as expensive a 100 page book would cost £5.70 rather than £1.70 to print.

As a side note, if you are inserting images in your book I would recommend turning them into greyscale images and increasing the brightness. Book printers set their printers to print high contrast meaning dark sections in photos may appear darker.
- Oliver 06 Jul 10:16
1
Benjamin - Page ranger: +52

24 Jun 14:04

Hi David, same here. As you can see from my original post I published over 5 weeks ago now and mine still hasn’t been listed on any other site, Amazon, Waterstones etc yet either.

I am waiting for this before I send out press releases etc. I’m hoping it will appear very soon.

:)
Any joy with Amazon listing yet Benjamin? I am still waiting for mine – 6 weeks on tuesday!
- David 26 Jun 17:52
No matey, Not listed just yet.
- Benjamin 27 Jun 19:25
Let us know when you get it listed! I will do the same – 6 weeks today for me and still nothing.
- David 28 Jun 12:31
Same date for me David, 17th May I published mine.
- Benjamin 29 Jun 03:21
Benjamin, just checking to see if you have got yours listed on Amazon yet? Mine is still not as of this morning (8th July) despite Oli telling us it would all be sorted by yesterday.
- David 08 Jul 12:57
Hi mate.

Mine is now listed!! YEY!! It has no picture or description just yet, Im hoping that comes on very soon. Has yours?
- Benjamin 08 Jul 18:03
hi Benjamin, I am still waiting matey – CN have posted another message saying there is another problem they have discovered that have prevented some books getting listed! Mine, sad to say is one of those. I wait with no great hope! Good luck with yours though.
- David 11 Jul 17:45
David - Wordsworth: +415

24 Jun 19:30

At times it seems impossible to get an answer from the CN team – they are snowed under I think!
Doing our best. I think I’ll add an email notification so I get notified of every post in every question/discussion. At the moment I only get a notification if it is a direct reply to me so I miss quite a few.
- Oliver 06 Jul 10:18
Oli – the whole communication thing with CN is too complicated – i am not surprised you miss some posts – people seem to be able to post comments or questions all over the place! I have evne started putting tghe same issues in several different places to try to get your attention (bet you noticed!) but that is daft and is just cluttering up the site! I know you are doing your best – and the only important thing for me is to get that damned listing on Amazon before it is too late for any interest.
- David 11 Jul 17:51
Michelle - Page ranger: +53

29 Jun 00:17

Oh dear, had no idea it would take that long! Oh well, will direct them here instead! Thanks for the info :)
1
Benjamin - Page ranger: +52

05 Jul 16:02

Hi Guys.

It’s been 7 weeks now and to be honest it’s getting a bit ridiculous. I have people keep asking me when it’s going to be on Amazon etc as they keep checking to buy it. They want to buy it from Amazon etc for lots of reasons (Vouchers etc)

It is a great site and the ability to self publish is brilliant but it is getting a little disheartening now as I just want to get it out there. It isn’t the same until you can say, “Find it at all your good book shops, amazon etc”. Rather than having to give them one direct link and a lengthy explanation why that’s the only place you can get it.

Any more info from Oliver etc would be gratefully received.
Hi Benjamin,

It seems there has been a roundabout of information causing problems with the feeds from LS, CN and Nielsen. I published an article about it here.

I’m also going to be pushing LS and Nielsen to update their feeds as soon as possible to update the retailers listings.

I’ll update the discussion on the article with the latest as I get it.
- Oliver 06 Jul 10:27
David - Wordsworth: +415

06 Jul 01:04

I can only echo exactly what you say – up until now i have been absolutley delighted with the CN service (despite several problems along the way). But this inordinate delay in getting my book onto Amazon is just spoiling it all. I have explained in previous questions that my book is very time sensitive – once the new football season gets underway fans will no longer be interested in the previous season, and you are quite right lots of people prefer to use Amazon – mainly i think because they know it, have an account already set up and have proved before that it works. Oli told us it should be only 2 weeks from CN publish date but like you I am now into week 7 and counting. i am sure it has something to do with the note Oli sent round about LS but some further comforting words telling us someone was on the case would at least make us feel something was happening. Too often queries are not being responded to – that is the only major criticism I have of CN. This is my first attempt at a book, I have sold over 20 copies through CN and several already through the Amazon Kindle version that i loaded myself – but most fans want the paperback.
I see your finally on Amazon. Just thought I would have a nosy to see if you were there. You have no description like me, mine hasn’t been updated since it uploaded.
- Benjamin 24 Jul 11:56
2
Georgina - Wild swan: +1916

11 Jul 12:32

Hi, we’ve been looking into this and for some reason a few peoples’ books seem to be missing data on the ISBN database held by Neilsen, which may be holding up their book’s listing on Amazon. We’re really sorry for the delay here and understand that you must be frustrated.
We’re working on it and will keep you updated on progress.
1
Benjamin - Page ranger: +52

11 Jul 13:30

Hi Georgina

I appreciate all your help (CN), and that makes sense as I have my book listed now but with no information, description etc. Is that what you are working on?