Yarlophone? Yarlophone? What’s Yarlophone?
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has a hardback book printing service in beta trials. For some unknown reason, it appears as Yarlophone in the KDP “formats” reports. How is it going to work?
Because your book will be in a separate format, it will require a unique ISBN. If you are letting Amazon produce the ISBN for your books, they will take care of that chore. If you are the “publisher” of record for your book and purchased ISBNs from Bowker, you will need to use one of the numbers for the hardback book. An earlier blog discussed “Those Pesky ISBNs.”
The hardback will be treated much like the KDP print book. You will need to upload your cover and pdf text. Study the printing-royalty formula to determine the hardback price. An earlier blog tackled the print copy procedures.
Do we want to print hard-bound copies of our books? I believe I do, if for no other reason than vanity. I want a hard-bound copy of my book in our library. And it may be that public libraries may want hard-bound copies for durability.
I got an email from KDP asking if I wanted to be part of the beta team. I thought, sure, why not? Perhaps every author got the same email. They didn’t tell me (or I didn’t read carefully) that the new system was Yarlophone. Yarlophone is an odd enough word that I may have skimmed it.
When and if Yarlophone will be available to everyone is unclear. It is in “beta testing.” Al Rogers, a fellow computer programmer, once said, “The new version of FrEdMail will be out in the humph-cough quarter of this year.” So, perhaps Yarlophone will be available in the humph-cough quarter of this year.
For those reading this and loving Members of the Cast, I am sure you will be anxiously awaiting the grand moment when you can purchase your very own hard-bound copy.
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