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The KDP title creation limit is now two per format a week, and the exception route has gone

James Heppe-Smith

Wooden wall shelf with three compartments labelled Ebook, Paperback and Hardcover, each holding two items, above a card reading 2 per format, each week

On 21 September Amazon cut the KDP title creation limit from ten new titles per format a week to two. The announcement was short, and it left out the part that matters most to anyone who publishes at volume: the sentence telling you how to ask for more has been taken off the help page.

For most authors this changes nothing. For series authors, small presses, and anyone relaunching a back catalogue, it is worth ten minutes with a calendar.

On 5 October Amazon added a second cap, this time on how many new titles you can submit for publication each week. It is covered below, and it changes the planning advice.

What the new KDP title creation limit says

KDP’s announcement, dated 22 September, reads:

Starting Monday, September 21, 2026, you can create up to 2 titles per format per week.
Your weekly limit resets every Sunday at 12:00 AM UTC.

The FAQ underneath adds three answers. Existing and already published titles are not affected. The limit applies to eBook, paperback and hardcover separately (“You can create 2 titles per format per week”). And if you hit it, you wait for the Sunday reset.

That was the whole of Amazon’s published guidance when the change was announced. It was three questions long.

The sentence that disappeared

KDP’s Create a Book help page has carried a title creation limit for some time. An archived copy from 25 August 2026 reads:

To ensure a positive experience for all authors, we limit the number of titles you can create at the same time to 10 per book format each week. If you expect to regularly create a large number of titles, please contact us to inquire about an exception.

The same page on 23 September:

To ensure a positive experience for all authors, we limit the number of titles you can create at the same time to 2 per book format each week.

Two things changed. The number fell by four fifths, and the second sentence went. Before, a publisher who needed more capacity had a documented route to ask for it. Now there is no route on the page at all. That does not prove Amazon will refuse every request, but it does mean you should plan as if the limit is fixed.

A second limit, added on 5 October

Added 7 October 2026. Two weeks after the first change, KDP put a new line at the top of the same announcement:

[Update as of October 5, 2026] In addition to the title creation limits, you can now submit up to 2 new titles per book format each week for publication. This limit counts the first time you submit a title for publication, including titles saved as drafts. Updates to titles you previously submitted do not count toward the weekly submission limit.

The Create a Book help page now lists the two limits side by side and adds:

These limits are separate from each other, apply separately to each book format (eBook, paperback, and hardcover), and reset every Sunday at 12:00 AM Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

So each format now has two counters, both set at two a week. One counts the titles you create. The other counts the titles you send for publication for the first time. Fixing a typo or changing the price on a book you have already submitted uses neither.

What counts as a title

Amazon does not say what act “creates” a title, and it does not address the cases people are asking about. What KDP’s own workflow shows is that each format, whether ebook, paperback or hardcover, is set up as a separate entry on your Bookshelf and then linked to the others. So each format is its own title in KDP’s system, and the limit is counted per format.

Read that way (and this is our reading, not a statement Amazon has made), the cases look like this:

  • A paperback of an ebook you published last year is a new paperback title and uses one of that week’s paperback slots.
  • A box set is a new title with its own detail page, so it uses a slot in each format you create it in.
  • A translation or a new edition is also a new title.
  • Pen names do not get their own allowance. The limit belongs to the account, and every pen name publishing from one Bookshelf draws on the same six weekly slots. Amazon has not said this in so many words, but nothing in how the Bookshelf works suggests otherwise.
  • A draft you started before 21 September already exists, so on the FAQ’s own logic it should not count again as a creation when you return to it. Amazon has not confirmed this either. It will count towards the submission limit in the week you first submit it, because the help page says that limit “includes titles previously saved as drafts”.

If any of those matters to a launch you have planned, ask KDP support before you rely on it.

What it means for a release plan

The limit is per format, so one book released as an ebook, a paperback and a hardcover uses one slot in each. You can still put out two complete books in every format in the same week.

Where it bites is anything that stacks titles:

  • Back catalogue relaunches. Eight books going up in ebook and paperback together now take four weeks, not one.
  • Box sets alongside new releases. Two ebook box sets created in the same week use both ebook slots, so nothing else in ebook goes up that week.
  • Small presses and multi-author accounts. Every author and every pen name on the account shares the six weekly slots.

At Heppe-Smith we release a new book every other month, so a normal week never comes close. The weeks to watch are the unusual ones, such as a week with a box set or two going up, and the answer then is simply to plan what else goes up in that format that week.

Creating is not publishing, and both are now limited

The first limit counts titles you create. The second counts titles you submit for publication for the first time. Neither sets the date a book goes on sale. A title you submit this week can go up on pre-order and be released weeks later. Since 2 September KDP has let you set an ebook pre-order up to eighteen months ahead.

Setting up a pre-order means submitting the title, so on our reading it uses a submission slot in the week you set it up, not in release week. Amazon has not said so in terms.

So if a launch needs more than two titles in one format, spread both steps over the weeks before it. Create the titles early and submit them early. For ebooks a pre-order lets you do that without moving the release date. Where you cannot use a pre-order, the titles will have to go live across more than one week. What no longer works is preparing everything as drafts and submitting the lot in launch week, because a draft counts when it is first submitted.

Why Amazon did it

Amazon’s only stated reason is the one in the announcement: “to help maintain a positive publishing experience for all authors.”

The history points the same way as most of the reporting. When KDP first capped title creation in September 2023, at three a day, it said the cap was there “to help protect against abuse”, at a time when AI-generated submissions were the obvious concern. The Alliance of Independent Authors reads the 2026 cut as part of the same effort. Amazon has published no figures on submission volumes, and nobody outside Amazon has them, so treat any number you see attached to this change with suspicion.

The short version

From 21 September you can create two titles per format per week on KDP: two ebooks, two paperbacks and two hardcovers, resetting at midnight UTC on Sunday. Existing titles are untouched. The old limit was ten, and the help page no longer offers an exception. From 5 October you can also submit no more than two new titles per format a week for publication, and a draft counts when it is first submitted. If a launch needs more than that, create and submit the titles across the weeks beforehand.

If you are publishing your first book, none of this will get in your way. Our KDP setup guide walks through the whole process.

Keep reading: The ACX legacy royalty model ends this year, Thomson Reuters v. ROSS: what the first appeal ruling on AI training means for authors.

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