What is an Author Copy?
- Author copies are copies of your published paperback, which can be purchased at printing cost.
- Author copies are currently available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Dutch.
- Availability in Japan will be added later.
- Unavailable in Australia, Brazil, and Netherlands.
- Author copies look exactly the same as a retail copy (e.g. the ISBN is the same and there’s no markings on the cover or in the interior to designate that it’s an Author Copy).**
**NOTE: Author Copies shouldn’t be confused with Proof Copies, which don’t have an ISBN and have a banner across the front to show that it’s a proof copy. But the benefit of a Proof Copy is that you can order it before your paperback is at Published status on Amazon KDP.
Why order an Author Copy?
You may need copies of your book for a gift or to give away.
- If you’re giving copies of your book away, you don’t have to the full retail price of your book, instead you only pay for the printing, shipping and taxes. This means if you run a book giveaway using books acquired through a discounted rate.
- If you’re doing a book reading or author event, it’s good to have copies of your books available for fans to purchase, and you can offer these at a discounted “event price” to encourage them to purchase your book directly.
- If you’re selling copies directly from your website, you can keep a small inventory of books on hand so that you can ship right away.
If you need to ship an author copy to a reader, it’s important to bear in mind that the lead time for for an author copy is longer than a retail copy.
- A retail copy can be delivered with a day or two (in my example below I ordered late on Sunday night, and it is due to deliver on Wednesday). This lead time is obviously determined by your destination (I’m currently in a metropolitan area), and whether you have Prime (I don’t).
- I ordered author copies at the same time, and the minimum lead time is 2 weeks, and could end up being a little bit longer. The lead time could actually be shorter, but it’s not guaranteed.
How to Order an Author Copy?
- Your book must be in LIVE status
- Go to your Bookshelf and find the paperback you’d like to order.
- Click Order Author Copies link in the ellipsis (“…”) menu.
- Enter the order quantity and choose the Amazon marketplace closest to your shipping destination.
- After you select the marketplace, the cost will be displayed. (This cost is calculated in the currency of the selected marketplace. It doesn’t include shipping and applicable taxes.)
- Click Proceed to checkout. You’ll be redirected to the Amazon cart/basket of your chosen marketplace to complete your order.
You can order as many author copies as you want with a maximum of 999 units per order. If you want to order more than 999 author copies at a time, you can place multiple separate orders.
FYI: You can cancel items or orders that haven’t entered the shipping process yet by visiting the Order section in Your Account.
For more information, visit the Amazon KDP Author Copy help page.
The HOW and WHY of ordering a discounted version of your paperback via @AmazonKDP. Why pay retail when you can order a copy of your book for much less. #AuthorCopies #Selfpub Click To Tweet
More about Author Copies and Proof Copies can be found in Book Three of my How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide series.
Read more articles in my How to Write a Travel Guide Series
I’m putting the finishing touches on my How to Write and Self-Publish a Travel Guide Series, which details a step by step approach for writing and producing your own travel guide. It’s part of a four-part series aimed at helping travel bloggers achieve passive income based on their passions and existing content.
I really enjoy reading your article.
how much is an author’s copy? much are you being charged?
There’s multiple factors that determine your author copy cost: your trim size, your page count, and whether you’re printing in black and white or colour. Amazon charge you for the cost of printing and shipping. So once your book is on KDP, have a look at the last page at the printing cost and that’s what you’ll pay – plus shipping.
Just a quite note to say that once you buy author copies (or proof copies), your KDP account will be linked to a regular Amazon account. I bought author copies of a new book I published using a VPN on my computer and a gift card and my account was locked out due to “suspicion.” Amazon’s customer support in general is good but for issues such as account access, they are the worst of the worst. Twenty days later and several attempted phone calls and emails later I was still locked out. My author account is toast for the rest of history. Fortunately I had not launched the book yet, otherwise I don’t know what I would do. Don’t underestimate me when I say I tried everything I could to get back in, including sending a photocopy of the gift card and receipt and everything else they demanded.
From now on, considering I like to use VPNs and other “suspicious” privacy tools, I only buy full-price copies from an account that is not tied to my KDP account. I simply cannot risk getting into the Catch-22 of Amazon account access again.
That sounds like a nightmare. That’s the only problem with large companies … trying to get somebody to take notice and fix your issue.
Dear Ms. Artale, I published five books two years ago. I can’t get Author copies for these books. But for the two books I published late last year, I can order these copies.
Why? Thank you.Best regards.
Back then, paperbacks were printed via CreateSpace, so if your books are now on KDP select, maybe it’s something to do with them being old CreateSpace publications. I’d suggest you contact Amazon and ask them what the problem is, I’m sure they’ll be able to fix it.
Thank you for this article. Can I order author copies more than once?
I am just launching a book and want to order author copies. The problem is that I am not sure how much I can sell through my website and at events. I am thinking about ordering a few copies and ordering more as I need them.
Yes absolutely. You can order then as often as you want.
I recently published the second book of a trilogy. I ordered a proof copy and when it arrived found many mistakes. I altered the file and resent it with the changes. Two days later I was informed that my book was once again live. However when I went to Amazon’s website and looked at the look inside feature the mistakes were still there. Thinking i must have sent the wrong file I resent it making sure it was the revised one not the original, Once again I was told your book is now live but still the mistakes were there. It is over a week and still the changes have not appeared. I am worried that readers will be receiving the old mistake laden version.
Hi Jay,
Hello Blake,
I just read your write-up regarding author’s copies. It was exactly what I was looking for. With that said, I came up with a couple of other questions that I can’t seem to get answered yet.
1) If I purchased 10 copies of my book at retail on Amazon (I’m assuming I’d get the royalty) and had Amazon mail them directly to my KS supporters, would all 10 be counted as ‘verified’ purchases, i.e. 10 purchasers or just one for me, the actual purchaser even though I’m not the actual receiver of the book? I’m thinking not and in that case, I’d use Amazon to send them Authors Copies. If so, however, do think it might be worth it to boost the sales and receive the royalty if I paid the full price?
2) I’m trying to decide if I want to go with KDP Select. Do you have any views on this?
3) What is the typical shipping cost for a single author’s copy? I’m doing a Kickstarter campaign and am working out the cost of my rewards.
Thanks for your insights,
Best Regards,
J Ward Anderson
Author copies are not available in the Netherlands? Then why can they be printed in Dutch?
Can you order author of copies of two separate books with the same checkout? It doesn’t seem to give that option.