Twelve checkpoints to find every outdated cover, missing format, and dead listing hiding in your catalog, before you spend time producing anything new.
A backlist audit isn't busywork. It's the fastest way to find what's already costing you sales: a paperback that never went live on IngramSpark, a cover still listing last year's price, a series with three books linked together and a fourth sitting on its own. None of that shows up until you go looking for it, one title at a time. If planners are part of your catalog, the 2027 planner publishing checklist covers the edition and trim-size gaps this audit doesn't dig into.
Work through each section against your actual KDP dashboard, not your memory of it. Jump to any section below, or work straight through top to bottom.
Same twelve checkpoints, formatted as a workbook you can print and work through by hand: notes fields for every section, a repair-plan table, and a final launch gate before you call the audit done.
Read every checkpoint free on this page, no account needed. Create a free Frontlist account only when you want the printable workbook version, 12 checkpoints and 48 verifications on paper. No credit card required.
Start with a full, current export, not the list in your head.
A title isn't one thing. It's every format it exists in, and every format it should exist in.
The file on your drive and the file that's live are not always the same file.
Covers drift out of date quietly: a price, a bio, a spine width that no longer fits.
One misassigned ISBN can quietly tangle two listings together.
Confirm status directly in KDP. What you remember publishing and what's actually live can diverge fast.
Small inconsistencies here quietly fragment a series or an author brand.
Old promotional pricing has a way of becoming permanent by accident.
A series only works as a series if KDP and your readers can actually see it as one.
KDP is rarely the whole picture once a catalog gets this size.
Not everything needs to be pulled. Some titles just need to be brought current.
A clean, current backlist outperforms a large, cluttered one.
Auditing identifies the problems. Frontlist gives you one place to track the corrections.
Track your first title freeTrack your first title free, no credit card needed. Import the rest of your backlist once you're ready.