I noticed the change a week ago when it actually messed me up. For Sponsored Brand ads I wasn’t able to create a new ad for any but three of my pen names and they weren’t the ones I like to advertise.
The solution I was told was to make sure that I had those names linked on Author Central for the email that I use to access KDP.
I noticed at the same time that the list of books I can advertise included a box set I’d been in ages ago that I hadn’t published myself but that was on one of my Author Central pages.
And so I checked, and sure enough, one of the books I only publish in print through IngramSpark was also eligible to advertise.
Today I get an email from Amazon about how authors can now advertise their trade pub books, too, as long as those books are listed on their Author Central page.
Which means, if hybrid authors are smart, they will consider using AMS for their trade-pub titles. Now the margins are not anywhere near the same so it may not be financially feasible to do.
But it’s a helluva lot better way to spend money than pay for a publicist, for example. Or send out swag bags to people who already wanted your book.
(Although, yes, sure, reader loyalty helps so the swag bags are a thing that readers appreciate. But for a release week or release month in trade pub where doing well fast matters? I’d put that money behind an AMS campaign myself.)
Might turn out to be nothing. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see even more competition in AMS ads as a result of this change.
M.L. Humphrey 