Amazon is not relaxing paperback submission limits.

[TimothyEllis]

I'm trying to catch up on my Paperbacks at the moment.

I had 17 to do, but there is now a submission limit of 4 a day.

After you've done 4, they won't even let you change and save the 5th one.

The pop up on that has a link to Help with the suggestion you contact them to get the limit removed.

I did that, although there is no specific place for that request.

It took them 3 days to get back to me denying the request in the interest of 'good customer experience'.

Apparently a section of a series without the paperbacks constitutes a good customer experience. 

I understand why they've put the limit on, to stop the flood of low content and bot drek, but this was 17 novels, listed, going back over a year in release dates. demonstrably not spamming.

Moral: Don't get behind in your paperbacks.

[TimothyEllis]

They only let me do 3 today.

I finished the rest of the covers, but it's going to take a while to publish everything now.

[Bill Hiatt]

It's unfortunate that bad actors ruin the system for everyone.

[LilyBLily]

Sorry they didn't even bother to check your track record, Tim. You clearly got a canned response.

I do all my paperbacks simultaneously with the ebooks, because I want my own copy and I have a few people to whom I send print books. They don't read ebooks, and I'm not going to argue with them.

[TimothyEllis]

I do all my paperbacks simultaneously with the ebooks, because I want my own copy and I have a few people to whom I send print books. They don't read ebooks, and I'm not going to argue with them.

I used to, and then stopped without thinking about it.

My paperback sales are so negligible as to be hardly worth the effort.

But I like to keep the proofs. If something happens electronically, then at least they can be re-scanned. At least, that's the theory.

Plus, books on shelves is nice to see.

[Bill Hiatt]

There are still many readers who are married to the paper experience. However, since they are also generally committed to trad, we don't notice them as much.

For me at least, the pandemic changed that a little. My paperback sales went up a bit, I think because people with more time to read were running out of reading material. It also helped that I published a couple of myth novelizations that were a little closer to lit fic than my usual. In any case, paperback sales have remained higher than before.

More important for us, there are some readers who buy ebooks but still consider the presence of a paperback as a sign of legitimacy.

[LilyBLily]

There are still many readers who are married to the paper experience. However, since they are also generally committed to trad, we don't notice them as much.

For me at least, the pandemic changed that a little. My paperback sales went up a bit, I think because people with more time to read were running out of reading material. It also helped that I published a couple of myth novelizations that were a little closer to lit fic than my usual. In any case, paperback sales have remained higher than before.

More important for us, there are some readers who buy ebooks but still consider the presence of a paperback as a sign of legitimacy.

As a genre reader I have never looked for legitimacy, only stories that move me. But I totally get it. I'm just glad that I personally do not feel a desperate need to have my books on shelves in physical bookstores. Having worked in them, I know how iffy sales there can be. If the manager hates romance, my book might not get on the shelf anyway. And if all the employees are snooty about romances, they won't recommend (hand sell) my books, either. 

[Bill Hiatt]

I never worked in a bookstore, though I spent quite a bit of time in them. (I was mistaken for an employee more than once.)

The ones in my area were mostly chain rather than indie, but in any case, romance was always well represented. And in grocery stores (which often had little book sections back in the day), the selection was always a few bestsellers, with the rest of the space being all romances. Of course, back that far, there were no ebooks or self-publishing, so the whole dynamic was different. Readers who want there to be a paperback even if they aren't going to buy it may be unconsciously influenced by the old days, when book meant paper.

But for some reason, the phenomenon isn't unique to older buyers. A little while after one of my colleagues outed me to my students as an author, one of them saw a paperback copy of my first book. "It's real," she said in a surprised tone, though she had earlier told me she'd seen the ebook listing on Amazon. Somehow, ebooks weren't real books in her mind. Go figure!

[TimothyEllis]

(I was mistaken for an employee more than once.)

I used to get that all the time.

And not just in book stores. Retail stores generally.

Then again, I worked retail for about 14 years, so I guess I had that look. Never worked a book store though.