Overview

Amazon prevents sellers from listing books with publication dates set in the future, triggering Error 95104 when this condition is detected. This is a common issue for book sellers who encounter date mismatches during listing creation or bulk uploads. Understanding why this error appears and how to resolve it can save sellers time and prevent repeated submission failures.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Future dates are automatically blocked — Amazon's catalog system checks the publication date field against the current date and rejects any book listing where the publication date hasn't arrived yet.
• Bulk uploads are a common trigger — Sellers using inventory file templates may unknowingly include ASINs with future publication dates, causing the entire entry to be rejected.
• ISBN data can cause the issue — The publication date extracted from a book's ISBN or other identifiers may reflect a future release date, even if the seller didn't manually enter it.
• Data entry mistakes are frequent — Typos such as entering 2026 instead of 2025, using incorrect date formats, or relying on outdated publisher information can all produce this error.
• Pre-release listings are not permitted — Amazon does not allow book listings to go live before the official publication date under any circumstances.

Why This Error Occurs

Error 95104 is triggered when a seller attempts to create or update a book listing in Amazon's catalog and the publication date field contains a date that falls after the current date. This applies whether the listing is created manually through Seller Central or submitted via bulk inventory file uploads. The system performs an automatic validation check on the publication date, and if it detects a future date, the listing is blocked from being published. This restriction exists because Amazon enforces publisher release schedules and does not permit pre-release book sales through its third-party marketplace. The error can surface even when a seller believes the book is already published, particularly if the ISBN database or catalog entry contains an incorrect or updated future date.