Christmas deadlines for ebook publishing

If you’re planning on publishing or updating any ebooks this Chrismas you should take note of distributor Draft2digital’s deadlines for getting your ebook on seasonal sale.

The firm says you should plan ahead and submit any changes or listing requests by December 12 to ensure publication before the break.

The D2D offices will be closed on Friday, December 23 and Monday, December 26, with normal office hours resuming on Tuesday, December 27. The offices will also be closed on Monday, January 2.

Draft2digital has had further details from some ebook retailers, including:

APPLE
Apple’s publishing systems will be experiencing additional delays from mid-December through early January. To help you in planning release dates around this period you may use the following schedule:

  • Release dates from December 18 to 31 have a delivery deadline of Monday, December 12.
  • Release dates from January 1 to 8 have a delivery deadline of December 16.
  • All submissions must be submitted prior to midnight (PST) on the dates above.

BARNES & NOBLE
Book submissions and metadata changes supplied to Barnes & Noble from Draft2Digital are processed the next business day. B&N will be closed December 23 through December 26, and December 30 through January 2. No files will process during those windows, and there will be no direct support. Also during this time you may experience review slowdowns, and slowdowns following those dates as B&N deals with the backlog.

KOBO
Kobo’s publishing system will be down entirely from December 19th through December 29th. During this time, D2D will not be able to submit any new books or changes and recommends getting everything to them by December 12.

SCRIBD AND TOLINO
Scribd and Tolino will both continue publishing changes but both companies have announced limited support over the break. Scribd support will be closed from December 24 through January 2, and Tolino will offer limited support from December 21 through January 3.

Due to the volume of submissions during the holiday season, D2D expects other vendors will take longer than usual to implement changes and to publish new works.

Pre-orders scheduled during these periods will go live as expected, provided D2D gets the final manuscripts in and approved before the cut-off date of December 12 and highly recommends sending earlier that week to make sure it gets through review.

Amazon, of course, never closes but even the folk at Kindle Direct Publishing are bound to be under staffing and volume pressures, so publish as early as you can to ensure success.