I wanted to let you know there have been unexpected updates to Devouring Fortune ebook pre-orders through Amazon. I woke up this morning to an email no self-published author wants to receive:
Yup. They canceled every ebook pre-order through Amazon. Note that this does not effect pre-orders in any other format or on any other retailer. This only impacts ebook pre-orders through Amazon.
The thing is, the book was uploaded and has been uploaded since July. After further investigation, it appears that the edits I made to keywords on the listing that I saved but didn't finalize were the culprit. That was enough for Amazon to determine to take the entire listing down and cancel every pre-order for the ebook made through Amazon. There is no way to take this back or appeal. What's done is done.
I am also unable to make a new pre-order for the book, so I will have to wait until the actual release day of October 13th to upload the book again. Amazon will not accept pre-orders for the book at this time.
This is frankly, somewhat devastating, but all I can do is move forward and come up with some alternatives. I have been very vocal about encouraging readers to move away from Amazon, and so I will say it again: Please, please, start looking at other alternatives if you want to support authors and bookstores.
How you can order if your pre-order was canceled
So in the meantime, if you pre-ordered the book from Amazon and had your order canceled, here are the options:
- Order the ebook directly from my store. You can get a copy here. Given the timing of all this, I went ahead and made direct ebook purchases available now. These also include optional direct order incentives including an art print, bookmark and signed bookplate that ship worldwide.
- Pre-order Devouring Fortune from other online retailers including Kobo. The book will also be available on Kobo Plus on release day!
- Check out other ways to order on the Universal Order Page. You can find that here.
- Wait until October 13, 2026 when the book releases to purchase again on Amazon. If you must order off Amazon, I will be uploading the book manually on this date so it might take some time before its up.
This is all incredibly unfortunate, but the beauty of self-publishing is that it's all a slow moving marathon. Nothing to do but move forward.
Things you can do to support the book
If you want to help support Devouring Fortune, there's a couple of things you can do that would really help out:
- Pre-order the book through one of the options above, if you haven't already.
- If you were a Kickstarter backer or ARC reader and have already read the book, leave a review on whatever review site you like to read or leave reviews.
- Yap about the book to friends. Word of mouth is the absolute best way for books to succeed.
- And lastly, consider reposting or sharing social media posts about the pre-order cancellation to help get the word out.
Anyway, that's the current status of Devouring Fortune pre-orders through Amazon. I'll be re-uploading the ebook on release day. Again, this doesn't affect pre-orders in any other format or ebook pre-orders on other online retailers.