On the verge of my first publication, I was preoccupied with many questions.
Was my content up to snuff? Was the cover right? How do I market? And so on.
If this might be you, sit down and take a deep breath before hitting “Publish,” or you might be sorry. Some things can’t be changed afterward, like ISBNs.
KDP is happy to provide ISBNs. But if you publish anywhere else, like IngramSpark, you need your own ISBNs anyway.
So I bought several of them, which I got for free through the Library and Archives Canada. (If you live in the US, you’ll pay for your numbers. But be careful–if the company demands a lot of money, you’re probably being ripped off.) Then, feeling overwhelmed, I begged someone to load my files into KDP, and I forgot to give him my ISBNs.
No worries, right? I still had my ISBNs for other platforms.
Well, using KDPs #s meant my book was listed as Independently Published, which doesn’t look as professional as listing my own imprint, La Grange-Presse.
I ended up republishing the book a couple years later (for various reasons covered elsewhere), except this time, I loaded the files myself, and applied my ISBNs and my own publisher imprint. It does look more professional and competitive.
I did worry that KDP wouldn’t transfer my hard-earned reviews since the new edition had a different ISBN. Then I learned new editions require new numbers anyway, and since the meta data remained the same (ie book title and author name), my reviews got transferred.
Bonus: how to get your Amazon book reviews transferred to a new edition (2025)
I waited the requisite 72 hours for KDP to automatically transfer my hard-earned reviews to the second edition. It didn’t happen. Then I tried a dozen times to find a way online to request the transfer. Dead ends.
I finally got someone on the phone by randomly selecting options until I got through (then apologized for it.) The customer service person said he would email me the link, but in a moment of brilliance, I asked him to stay on the phone while I tried it. His link got me nowhere.
So he escalated my request (passed it on), and a few days later, my old reviews appeared in my new edition’s listing.
Phew!