Kindle MatchBook: How to Participate in Amazon’s Ebook Bundling Program

As a digitally savvy publisher who has titles available on Amazon in both print and Kindle formats, you know your customers would love to be able to bundle purchase your top quality print books and ebooks. Amazon’s Kindle MatchBook program that launched on Amazon.com can help you accomplish that! All you have to do is add a little bit of info to your metadata.

CoreSource Metadata Template

To input a MatchBook price, you will have to enter a new row for Price 1, same as when adding a library price or separate currency retail price.

1. Scroll to Column BE in the latest CoreSource template for the Price Type Qualifier field.
2. In the field for “Price 1” input one of three values: 0.99, 1.99, or 2.99. These are the only prices accepted by Amazon for their MatchBook program. If, however, you want to make the ebook free with the purchase of the print format, input 0 into the field.
3. You then must add a qualifier code to the price so that Amazon will know that this price is only used for MatchBook. Click open the drop down menu in Column BE, and select 03 Reduced price applicable when the item is purchased as part of a set (or series, or collection).
   
4. Kindle MatchBook is currently only available on Amazon.com, so setting just a USD price is sufficient unless you want to prepare for when the program is available in other territories. If you do not know the country/region codes for which you want to include (or exclude), you can check the “Code Lists” worksheet in the metadata template. Please note that if you want the price to be used worldwide, please input “WORLD” for “Regions Included” (this is done usually with the USD price) and leave all other fields blank.
5. Save the template with the file name convention PublisherName_YYYYMMDD, and ingest into CoreSource.
   
   How your price should appear after successful ingestion & where to delete the price if needed.
6. Distribute your metadata to Amazon and you’re finished! There is no other contract to sign, and you do not have to notify Amazon to opt in or out of the program. If you would like your title to be removed from the pricing program at any point, just delete the price from your metadata via the UI, and redistribute to Amazon. Updating your metadata whether to include a MatchBook price or to remove one would take just a business day, so if you do not see a change in your metadata on Amazon two days after distribution, please contact our Digital Services Coordinator.

ONIX Metadata

To add a Kindle MatchBook price into your titles’ ONIX metadata, add the <PriceQualifier> tag and use code 03. This is what the price block will look like:

<Price>
<PriceTypeCode>01</PriceTypeCode>
<PriceQualifier>03</PriceQualifier>
<PriceAmount>1.99</PriceAmount>
<CurrencyCode>USD</CurrencyCode>
</Price>


Code 03 for price qualifier indicates to Amazon that this price is used for their MatchBook program. You can also add region/country to the price block if you want to ensure it is only used in certain territories, but as mentioned above, currently Kindle MatchBook is only available on Amazon.com so USD pricing is sufficient at the moment.

Once you revise and re-ingest the ONIX file, distribute to Amazon and you’re done! If you ever want to opt a title out of Kindle MatchBook, just remove the price blocks with <PriceQualifier>03</PriceQualifier>, re-ingest into CoreSource and do a metadata-only distribution to Amazon.

If you want to ascertain that your MatchBook pricing metadata has gone through, send a list of ISBNs you made metadata revisions for to our Digital Services Coordinator and she will check eBOUND’s Amazon vendor portal to confirm that MatchBook has been enabled. Happy bundling!