Book Launch Checklist for Indie Authors: The 90-Day Plan (2026)

We recommend running an Amazon book launch as a 90-day plan: lock your metadata three months out, open a Kindle pre-order about 60 days out, get print and your Amazon pages ready at 30 days, submit the final file a week early, then spend launch week on your newsletter and small ads and the following month on promotions. The phase timings are our guidance, not Amazon rules. KDP's pre-order rules changed on September 2, 2026, so the deadlines below come straight from Amazon's current help pages.

This plan assumes a novel published through Kindle Direct Publishing, with an ebook and a paperback. If you publish wide, most steps still apply; the KDP Select section is the part you skip.

Why 90 days, and what changed in 2026

Ninety days is not an Amazon rule. It is a working window: long enough to get advance copies read, short enough that the book is still fresh in your head when readers write back. You can go longer. Since September 2, 2026, KDP lets you set an ebook release date up to 18 months in the future for new pre-orders, up from 12 months.

Three other changes this year affect launch planning:

• Pre-order penalties are softer but catalog-wide. Your first missed deadline or cancellation is "a one-time account-level courtesy." The second removes pre-order privileges "for 6 months across your entire catalog," according to Amazon's pre-order page.
• New-title limits. Since September 21, 2026, KDP lets you create up to 2 titles per format per week, and an October 5 update added a matching weekly limit on first-time submissions. The limit resets every Sunday at 12:00 AM UTC. One novel in ebook and paperback is nowhere near it, but a box set plus two new books in the same week would be.
• Kindle Unlimited is now Kindle+. Amazon renamed the subscription on October 22, 2026 and added eligible KDP and ACX audiobooks for US subscribers. Ebook reading in Kindle+ is still paid by page through the KDP Select Global Fund, as before.

90 days before launch: metadata, price and the Select decision

Metadata is the part of a launch that you set once and live with, so do it first and do it calmly.

Title, series and description

Enter the title exactly as it reads on the cover. KDP's metadata guidelines say the title and subtitle together must be fewer than 200 characters, and they bar words like "bestselling" or "free" in the title field. If the book is part of a series, set up the series details now; it is far easier than linking books later.

Your description has a hard limit of 4,000 characters, and the counter includes any HTML tags. The same metadata guidelines list what Amazon won't accept there, including "Reviews, quotes, or testimonials" and "Requests for customer reviews." Save praise for A+ Content and Author Central (more on both below). For the copy itself, our guide on how to write a book blurb walks through the structure.

Keywords and categories

Amazon's keyword page recommends you "use up to seven keywords or short phrases," avoid repeating anything already in your title or categories, and leave out Amazon program names such as Kindle+ or KDP Select. You can select 3 categories, and Amazon notes that new category placements "can take 72 hours to display." Our KDP keywords and categories guide covers the research method.

Price

On Amazon.com the 70% royalty option now covers list prices from $2.99 to $12.99. Amazon's list price page says the band changed "Effective July 7, 2026," expanding from $9.99. At 70%, Amazon also subtracts a delivery cost of $0.15 per MB in the US.

A worked example: a 2 MB novel at $4.99 earns 70% × ($4.99 − $0.30) = $3.28 per US sale. The same book at $0.99 falls into the 35% option and earns about $0.35. Our ebook pricing guide has a royalty calculator and the series strategies.

KDP Select or wide

Decide now, because it changes your promotion calendar. KDP Select requires the ebook to be exclusive to the Kindle Store for each 90-day enrollment period (print and audio can still go elsewhere). In return the book is in Kindle+ and gets access to free days and Countdown Deals. We compare the trade-offs in Kindle Unlimited vs going wide.

60 days before launch: open the pre-order and send advance copies

The pre-order

KDP pre-orders are for ebooks only. The pre-order page is explicit: "Pre-orders are available for eBooks only (not paperbacks or hardcovers)." You can have up to 10 active pre-orders at once, and public domain titles are not eligible.

Two details catch people out. First, a pre-order that you never submit stays in Draft; Amazon's setup page says you must select Submit for pre-order or it "will continue to be in 'Draft' status." Second, the release date is in GMT, so release day starts hours earlier than it does in New York.

If you need more time, pre-orders created on or after September 2, 2026 can be postponed up to 2 times, and the new date "can't be more than 6 months from your original release date." Exceed that and the pre-order is auto-canceled, which counts toward the penalty. Moving the date earlier has no limit, but the earliest you can move it to is "3 days from today," and only after the final manuscript is submitted.

One pricing note: you can change the list price at any time, and Amazon says "if you reduce the price, customers who already pre-ordered will be charged the lower price."

Advance reader copies and the review rules

This is the step with real policy risk, so here is Amazon's wording exactly, from the KDP Customer Reviews page.

You may give readers free or discounted copies, Amazon says, "as long as you do not require a review in exchange or attempt to influence the review." The next line is the one that trips up ARC programs: "Offering anything other than a free or discounted copy of the book, including gift cards, will invalidate a review." Amazon's Community team removes reviews that break this rule.

Amazon's customer-facing Community Guidelines say the same from the reader's side: shoppers may "Review free books (advanced reader copies) from authors or publishers," but authors "can't require a review in exchange for free books or try to influence your opinion." The same page bars reviews of products made by friends, relatives, employers and business associates, and it adds an eligibility bar on the reviewer: they "must have spent $50 on Amazon.com, using a credit or debit card, in the past 12 months" to post reviews or star ratings.

In practice, that means your ARC email should say something like: "Here is a free copy. If you'd like to leave an honest review on Amazon after release, it helps. There's no obligation." Do not ask for five stars, do not make the next ARC conditional on a review, and do not run a giveaway that only reviewers can enter. The FTC's 2024 final rule separately prohibits compensation or incentives "conditioned on the writing of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, either positive or negative."

Who should get copies? Beta readers who have already seen the book (see how to find beta readers), newsletter subscribers who opt in, and readers of your comp titles who review publicly. Before the files go out, run one last consistency pass. If you draft in BlurbBio, its continuity checker flags contradictions against your Story Bible, which is cheaper to fix now than after 40 readers have the ARC.

30 days before launch: print, Author Central and your detail page

Schedule the paperback

KDP cannot take pre-orders for print, but it can hold a print book back. On the Schedule a Release page, "A release date can be set up to 90 days in advance," the detail page "will remain hidden until that date," and the book goes on sale "at 12:00 AM GMT on the release date." Five days before release the book locks: no manuscript or detail changes, and no moving the date. Only new KDP print books qualify, and Amazon warns not to use this option if a different service is running your print pre-order.

Order a proof as soon as the book clears review. (If you haven't settled the paperback's ISBN yet, our guide to ISBNs for self-publishers covers free KDP numbers versus buying your own.) A hidden detail page still lets you order author copies once review is complete.

Author Central and A+ Content

Claim your Author Central page now. Besides the bio and photo, it matters at launch because Amazon notifies followers of "your book's release or availability for pre-order" if the book is eligible and they allow marketing emails.

A+ Content (images and text in the "From the Publisher" section) can go on live titles and pre-orders. Build it early: Amazon says compliant content appears "within eight business days," and longer in busy periods. It is also where endorsements can go, with limits: "A maximum of four quotes or endorsements is allowed," and only from well-known publications or public figures, with the source named.

This is also the week to make ad creative. Free tools like the book mockup generator and tagline generator are enough for Sponsored Products images and newsletter headers. If you wrote the book in BlurbBio, the Launch Kit is aimed at this stage: launch materials for a finished book.

7 days before launch: submit the final file

Amazon's deadline is 72 hours before release. Treat it as a week. After the final upload, KDP's pre-order page says you "won't be able to make changes for up to 72 hours while your eBook is reviewed," and its setup page warns that if a pre-order fails content review "you won't be able to resubmit the same book." Submitting with a few days of slack means a rejection is a fix, not a canceled pre-order and a strike on your account.

If you miss the deadline, Amazon's pre-order page lists the result: the pre-order is canceled, customers are notified and their orders canceled, and "Your pre-order privileges may be removed."

While you wait, check that the ebook and paperback have linked on one detail page. Amazon's titles page says to keep the title "exactly the same for your paperback, hardcover, and eBook versions," because that is how formats are linked.

Launch week: newsletter first, then ads

Your newsletter is the one channel where you control the timing. Send on release morning (remember the GMT release time), with one link and one ask. Send a short reminder to ARC readers that the book is live, without any request about the rating.

Then switch on ads. KDP's advertising page describes two formats for authors: Sponsored Products, which "appear in shopping results and on product detail pages," and Sponsored Brands, which showcase several of your books (Sponsored Brands needs a pen name with three unique titles in Author Central, so it is not an option for a debut). You set your own budget. The same page asks you to make sure the detail page "includes support for any claims you may make in your ads," so don't call a debut "bestselling."

Keep early budgets small and campaigns narrow (one for your own keyword list, one targeting comparable books). Launch week tells you which search terms convert; the month after is when you spend on the winners.

30 days after launch: promotions, ads and the next book

KDP Select promotions

If your pre-order was enrolled in KDP Select, the term "begins on your eBook's release date," per the pre-order page, and free promotions and Countdown Deals can only be scheduled after release.

• Free Book Promotions: up to 5 free days per 90-day term, starting no earlier than the second day of the term, scheduled at least a day ahead. Unused days do not roll over.
• Kindle Countdown Deals: US and UK only, and the title must have been "enrolled in KDP Select for at least 30 days." The Countdown page also requires the list price to be "unchanged for 30 days before and 14 days after" the deal, and you can run either a free promotion or a Countdown Deal in a given term, not both.

The 30-day price lock is the trap. If you launch at $0.99 and raise the price to $4.99 on day 7, the earliest Countdown Deal starts around day 37. Pick the launch price you intend to keep.

Ads, keywords and the page

After a month you have real search-term data. Pause terms that spend without selling, and move phrases that convert into your seven KDP keywords (you can change keywords "as often as you like," per Amazon). Rewrite the description or A+ Content using the words readers use in reviews.

The next book

The single best launch asset is a second book. Put its pre-order link in the back matter of the first as soon as it exists; with the 18-month pre-order window, it can exist well before the manuscript is done, as long as you are confident about the date. If you also plan an audiobook, eligible KDP and ACX audiobooks can now sit in Kindle+ for US subscribers, so it can join the launch rather than trail it.

The full checklist

Tick these off as you go. Your progress is saved in this browser.

What to do this week

If your book is finished or close: write down a release date and count back 90 days. Today, open the KDP keyword and category fields and draft all ten choices (seven keywords, three categories). Tomorrow, write the description and check it against the 4,000-character limit. By the end of the week, decide Select or wide, because that one choice sets the promotion calendar for the first three months.