Your book is stuck "In Review": what's normal, what's not, what to do

By Tracy Atkins, founder of BookDesigner.ai and BookDesignTemplates.com · 15+ years of print files, 70,000+ authors · Updated June 20, 2026

What "normal" looks like

If you just hit publish and the dashboard says "In Review," take a breath. Here is the honest baseline for each platform.

KDP: up to 72 hours, sometimes a little more

KDP documents that review typically takes up to 72 hours. In practice, plenty of titles sit right up against that window, and some stretch a day or two longer with no status change in between. That is normal. Importantly, you are generally only notified by email when the book actually goes live, so a quiet dashboard is not a problem, it is just how the process feels from your side. Refreshing the page every hour will not speed anything up.

IngramSpark: think in business days, not hours

IngramSpark title processing routinely takes several business days. Documented cases have sat much longer, sometimes weeks, particularly when a title lands in a "pending revision" state. Pending revision can block further changes while print orders are open, which is its own snag we cover in the updating-a-published-book guide. If your title is brand new and it has been a few business days, you are still inside normal.

What pushes a title into longer, manual review

Most books clear on the automated path. A title gets pulled aside for slower human review when something needs a person to look at it. The common triggers:

• A new account. First-time and recently created accounts are reviewed more carefully. This eases up as you build a history.
• AI-content disclosures. If you disclosed AI-generated or AI-assisted content, that can route the title to additional review. Disclose honestly anyway; a delay is far better than a policy problem later.
• Metadata mismatches. This is the big one authors control. The title and author name inside your interior file must exactly match what you typed into the setup form. A subtitle in the manuscript that is not in the metadata, a pen name spelled differently, a series name that does not line up, any of these can stall the title.
• Content flags. Certain subject matter, claims, or formatting can trip an automated policy check that a human then clears.
• Re-publishing after changes. Editing and resubmitting a title, especially more than once, sends it back through review, often more slowly than the first pass.

None of these mean your book is in trouble. They mean a person is confirming something, and people are slower than servers.

What to do while you wait

The instinct to "do something" is exactly the instinct to resist. Here is the productive version.

1. Verify your metadata matches your files exactly. Open the interior. Confirm the title, subtitle, and author name on the title page match your dashboard character for character. A mismatch is the single most common self-inflicted delay, and it is worth fixing correctly before you do anything else.
2. Do not resubmit repeatedly. Every re-upload or re-edit generally sends the title to the back of the review queue. Resubmitting three times does not triple your odds; it triples your wait. Make your file right once, submit once, and leave it alone.
3. Wait out the normal window before contacting anyone. For KDP, that means giving it past 72 hours. For IngramSpark, give it several business days. Contacting support inside the normal window rarely does anything except add to their queue.
4. Then contact the right support, with the right details. If you are clearly past the normal window with no movement, reach out. For KDP, use the "Contact Us" support form inside your KDP account and reference the specific title and its status. For IngramSpark, contact their support with your ISBN, title, and account so they can look up the exact processing state. A calm, specific message ("title X, ISBN Y, in review since date Z, no updates") gets a faster, better answer than a panicked one.

What NOT to worry about

The one thing that actually prevents this

Most avoidable review delays trace back to files that do not match the metadata, or to a rejected file that forces a resubmit and a fresh trip through the queue. Getting the interior and cover right the first time, with the title-page metadata matching your setup and a cover built to each printer's exact template, is what keeps a title moving. If your file was rejected on the way in, see our decoded guides for KDP cover errors and IngramSpark cover errors.

Sources: Amazon KDP publishing and review-timeline documentation; IngramSpark title-processing and support documentation; author-reported cases reviewed June 2026. Related: Updating a published book without losing reviews · KDP cover rejections, decoded · Vanity press red flags · All author guides