Author Topic: Steps to change your author name without messing up your books.  (Read 2242 times)

MelanieMRodriguez

UPDATE: This no longer works. I found out even just changing the title (not even your author name) will not let you keep your book anymore.



For the love of me, this is hard to find on the internet, so I am going to share it here with you.
How to Change Your Author Name or your Pen Name.

If you just started out and were using your real name and wanted to change it to a pen name, or vice versa, you can but there are repercussions to not doing it right. The last thing you want is for Amazon to separate out your books and steal away the reviews, and hope they put them back. You don't have to deal with any of that crud if you do this right.

This only covers Amazon, and you will still have a trail to your other name this way.


The process is simple, just don't rush it.

Step one, go hit your covers and manuscript!

Covers: If you plan on just changing your name, you'll need to change the name on the cover. If you plan on changing the title too, then you'll need two cover changes. One with the new name and the old book title, and one with the new name and the new book title.


I hope you still got those original manuscripts you uploaded to Amazon. Go in and change the author name. (This is also a good time to update any backmatter you want to that is outdated as well or links to your new author website.) Do not change anything else but backmatter or your author name. THIS IS IMPORTANT.

 :band: :band: :band: This is super important. Only your backmatter and author name. If you change your author name and the book's title at the same time, Amazon will take it's sweet time holding it in it's draft status then send you a fun letter telling you they made your book into a new book. :doh: Reviews may or may not carry over one day.
If you change too much in the original book too (I think 200 words?) they will also consider it a new book.


Go into your KDP account and go to your detail page. On your author name, replace it with your new author name.
Move to the next page, upload the manuscript with the author name change, and upload the cover with the author name change.

Publish.

Wait.

After a few hours, sometimes less, sometimes more, you can go to amazon author central. Select the book. When Amazon asks if it is your book, hit yes. You then will have a new author page with your new name.

Do that individually for each book you want. Always remember to claim them on Author Central so life is a lot less messy.

Now if you wanted to change a book's title as well? Here is that extra step.

Go back to your manuscript where you changed your author name. Now, change your title's name. To be courteous, you can also put previously published as ______ in it too for readers.

Go back into KDP account and edit book details. Go to title and change it to match the manuscripts new title.

Go to the covers and put in the cover with not only the changed author name, but the changed title too.

Upload the changed manuscript with the title change now too.

Publish.

 :cheers

A title change doesn't need any extra work in author central.

As long as you are good and take it slow, Amazon shouldn't mess up your book.

In a nutshell:

Change cover, manuscript, and details only for new author name.
Claim your author name in author central by selecting your book.
Change cover title, manuscript title, and detail title if you want to change the name of your book too.

*You can have brand new covers if you want. Amazon is just particular about Author name and book titles.







« Last Edit: July 10, 2020, 04:17:28 AM by SerenaSpacey »
 
The following users thanked this post: fleurina, Ace Fletcher, Writer, Kristen.s.walker

Doglover

Re: Steps to change your author name without messing up your books.
« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2019, 08:16:59 PM »
Sorry, but I recently changed the author name on one of my earlier books, because it was a different genre to all my others. Amazon would not allow an author name change. The section was greyed out and the only way to do it was to publish again.

Do you have a solution to that?
 

MelanieMRodriguez

Re: Steps to change your author name without messing up your books.
« Reply #2 on: July 17, 2019, 11:22:21 PM »
They are being extra edgy about author again even with same title? That hasn't happened since 2015 to me.

Okay. You'll need to co-author with yourself. In the author name area, place your original name and then your new name in the co-author area. Or switch it around. You might want to add both names to the manuscript and to the cover too. I usually do when they are being extra finicky.

Because they see the original name, it should now go through because they think you are the original author.

Then next time you can work on it, take off the other name for just your new name and fix your book cover to just your new name. Because they saw the co-author name last time, now they can assume this is indeed a new author.

I admit, it's all confusing. I just try and take it step by tiniest step. You might also want to email them. You might have someone that was just touchy about author names. I hope your book gets fixed. It's real annoying to lose everything just because you want to change an author name.
 
The following users thanked this post: Ace Fletcher

LilyBLily

Re: Steps to change your author name without messing up your books.
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2019, 06:20:36 AM »
What if all I want to do is change about 1300 words?

When I've changed backmatter to include excerpts or changed the copy urging people to subscribe to my newsletter, Amazon has never given me any trouble. Is it likely to be a problem now? 
 

MelanieMRodriguez

Re: Steps to change your author name without messing up your books.
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2019, 10:02:26 PM »
I don't know. I wouldn't think so. I know authors that once changed the ending of their serial to include the whole novel after select ku2 with page reads came about. Of course that was then. That's a really good question though.

I changed my title, my end matter, and even the format I used (.mobi) to fix my book. I don't think it changed more than maybe 200 words though.
 

Doglover

Re: Steps to change your author name without messing up your books.
« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2019, 06:09:13 PM »
What if all I want to do is change about 1300 words?

When I've changed backmatter to include excerpts or changed the copy urging people to subscribe to my newsletter, Amazon has never given me any trouble. Is it likely to be a problem now?
I've added 25,000 words before and never had a problem. I also changed first person to third at the same time.

As I said, the author name place was greyed out when I went to change that (different book) so it couldn't be done. Too late now, anyway.