Forum: Author Hangout

Someone from the UK on wattpad said on Amazon UK she was able to read the first 17 chapters of a novel as a free preview. If she had read what was available on the Look Inside, she wouldn't have bought the book. But after reading 17 chapters, she was hooked and bought it.

I never heard of a free preview on KDP. Is that an option? A UK option? Or did the publisher release the 1st 17 chapters of the novel as a separate book that was free?

I'd love to offer the first 16 chapters (of 40) of my LAST KISS novel as a free preview. I think if a reader got that far they'd want to know what happens next.

Anyone know about this? I thought you could only have up to 10% of your novel free.

Anyone know about this? I thought you could only have up to 10% of your novel free.

I don't know about the Amazon system, but with Lulu the default is 10%, but you can set how much you want as the free preview. I often set selected chapters from different places through out the book to give people an idea of where things are going.

I've never heard of it either. Amazon tends to use a set amount of material, SW allows you to adjust the amount, to a certain degree, while lulu forces you to create a separate pdf document, which technically isn't limited but can't be over a certain size.

I'm not sure what she's talking about, but guess she either caught the story when it switched from being free to pay, or hit a glitch where she was able to read more than she was allowed to.

Amazon also has an option (which I despise where you can make the 'look ahead' portion non-sequential (i.e. all random pages).

This is Amazon's answer:

I understand that you'd like to have more chapters of your book "Last Kiss with ASIN B07364SNDB" being offered for free.

Currently 10% of your book is showing for free. We can change that to be between 10% and 80% for paperbacks. For eBooks, we can change that to be between 5% and 45%.

Kindly note that any changes made will reflect on all Marketplaces, we are not able to differentiate between marketplaces.
Also the "Look Inside" and the Free sample are the same, it is just a different way of offering the free "content".

To request a percentage change, please reply to this email with the percentage of pages you'd like to be viewable. Paperback percentages should be in 10% increments and eBooks should be in 5% increments.

Please rest assure that you didn't miss any option and the "Look Inside feature" is the previewer option we offer in KDP. Our KDP Terms and Conditions only allow for one edition of the same book to be published at a time.
Therefore you will not be able to publish the first 16 chapters under a new ASIN.

For more details on our Look Inside the Book feature, check our Help page:
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A1MX1IQPDRWC5C