The short answer: kind of. Here’s the longer answer.
Amazon KDP (the service used by self-publishing authors) has long had an automated quality-control process that looks for “critical issues” in ebook files uploaded to its site. If any critical issues are found, Amazon won’t make your book available for sale until they’re resolved.
According to Amazon’s own statement about quality control, typos are among the most common quality issues reported by customers. But they are not considered of a critical nature. When you upload your ebook for sale through Amazon KDP, it will alert you to how many typos or related errors it believes it has found, and it will suggest you correct them before publication—although you can still forge ahead with the errors firmly in place.
So why is this a conversation topic now? Amazon is contacting authors of ebooks that have known quality issues and asking for those issues to be resolved. If they are not resolved, Amazon will show customers a warning message that details quality issues that may interfere with the reading experience. These are issues not necessarily related to typos, but to poor ebook formatting. (Amazon has in fact listed such warnings on its site before now, but it has expanded the scope of what deserves a warning.)
Amazon also said that if it receives complaints about a specific ebook, it will investigate each case—outside of the automated process—and give the author an opportunity to correct any problems, if found. John Doppler’s blog has the most straightforward explanation of the changes.
Bottom line: In the spirit of our own “no drama, no hype” brand promise, we highly encourage you to review Amazon’s actual statement about quality control. As Doppler writes, “The reality is far less dramatic” than some of the claims being made on writing and publishing blogs. Author Elizabeth S. Craig has a good account, as well, of needing to bring one of her own titles up to code.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
