A+ content

[Bill Hiatt]

When Amazon first started allowing indie authors to populate parts of their product pages with "from the publisher" type stuff, I remember hearing a lot of negative feedback about how hard those features were to use. But recently, I've seen some really good content examples that look worthwhile.

Two questions:

First, do you find A+ easy to use?

Second, do you see any impact on sales? (I know it's hard to tell where sales came from, but if you got a spurt immediately after trying some good A+ content, that would be an indication.

[LilyBLily]

It was easy to use, although I'm fairly sure I made some mistakes while putting mine together. Also, I soon realized that to optimize it, I need to constantly update it. And no, I doubt it does anything for my book sales, but one never knows.

[TimothyEllis]

The images are all very non-standard sizes, and don't resize automatically.

So to get an image to look right, you need to create it exactly the right size for the template you want to use.

The rest is long winded but straight forward. The interface is typically Amazon, and has no short cuts at all.

For example, you have to add the asin to a A+ template manually. Instead of just being presented a list of your books with check boxes next to them.

The other thing is every store is different. And while you can create one for the US, and use it as the template for UK and Can, you can't for AUS, which has to have it's own created from scratch.

The other languages are in those languages, so you can just duplicate the US template everywhere.

Result for me is my AUS A+ has one less asin than it should have, and I have no idea which book is missing. And with my number of books, figuring it out will take too much time.

I find the whole interface very clunky to use, hence going for a single image with a title and text after it.

But that image is the read order I recommend that crosses 8 series.

And as said, it needs maintaining every time I add a book.

Does it make much difference? Hard to know. No big spike when I first added them. But I've noticed an improvement overall since then, but can't say for sure that's the reason.

[alhawke]

First, do you find A+ easy to use?

No. It's a pain to get images to fit right. I don't know why the templates have to be so restrictive.

Second, do you see any impact on sales? (I know it's hard to tell where sales came from, but if you got a spurt immediately after trying some good A+ content, that would be an indication.

I haven't noticed anything. The only area I attribute significant sales from is Amazon's series lists. Might be because the series list is at the very top of the page.

[R. C.]

...
First, do you find A+ easy to use?
...

It is another necessary evil imposed by the 'Zon.

...
Second, do you see any impact on sales? (I know it's hard to tell where sales came from, but if you got a spurt immediately after trying some good A+ content, that would be an indication.
...

Not a clue.

R.C.

[TimothyEllis]

It is another necessary evil imposed by the 'Zon.

I don't agree.

It's a huge step forward for authors to add to book pages to enhance the blurbs.

Gives me the chance to tie all my series together visually effectively.

[Bill Hiatt]

It is another necessary evil imposed by the 'Zon.

I don't agree.

It's a huge step forward for authors to add to book pages to enhance the blurbs.

Gives me the chance to tie all my series together visually effectively.

Yours was one of the ones I definitely noticed. In a situation like yours, in which you have several series in the same universe, it does seem as if the material should be a real advantage.

Is it necessary to create the material for each book separately, or is it easy to transfer from one book to another. (I know some people seem to have separate displays based on each book, but yours is obviously the same for all books.)

It sounds as if the usability issues initially reported are still issues. Sigh! I was hoping that wasn't the case. But perhaps I'll give this a try, anyway.

[TimothyEllis]

Is it necessary to create the material for each book separately, or is it easy to transfer from one book to another. (I know some people seem to have separate displays based on each book, but yours is obviously the same for all books.)

No. You create the one A+, and add all the asins to it. It then displays on all of them.

Then from the UK and CAN stores, you can use the exact same US template, just select it, edit and run through without changing anything and submit. It will then get added to all the same asins in the new store.

It doesn't work for the AUS store though. I had to recreate a new one for there. But that one is also available to the US, UK, and CAN stores.

[alhawke]

I've had some issues with transferring things from store to store.

One thing I was hoping for was advertising the content in stores where English is not the country's primary language. Those were rejected. I get why. I suppose they don't want English advertised on a French or German store, etc. But I figured the books are in English and there are international readers who read my books in English.

[TimothyEllis]

I've had some issues with transferring things from store to store.

One thing I was hoping for was advertising the content in stores where English is not the country's primary language. Those were rejected. I get why. I suppose they don't want English advertised on a French or German store, etc. But I figured the books are in English and there are international readers who read my books in English.

I've not tried converting my text using Google Translate, mainly because the sites themselves are not in English, so I'd be guessing as to which button to press.

But it might be worth trying.

[PJ Post]

Maybe see if ChatGPT can help, either with the translations or a template.

[Bill Hiatt]

In general, I'm skeptical of using machine translations in a language I don't know (and hence have no way to check). An awkward translation might do more harm than good. Anyway, as alhawke pointed out, anyone who would want to read a novel in English would be able to read some copy in English on the product page.

I just checked on amazon.de to be sure it was still true that product descriptions on English books display in English. They do. The site automatically selected English as my language, but when I switched to German, the product descriptions remained in English. That being the case, I don't see who Amazon would object to an English "From the Publisher" message.

This may be something Amazon needs to rethink...

[TimothyEllis]

How did you get the login to the de site to be in English?

Was everything after that in english or german?

[alhawke]

That being the case, I don't see who Amazon would object to an English "From the Publisher" message.

Thing is, I'm not sure if my content was rejected internationally for language content or for something else. One of the problems with A+ content rejections is it doesn't always say why the content wasn't accepted.

I hesitate to use a translator. It's too easy to write something completely nonsensical. Whenever I write even a sentence in another language in a book, I research it like crazy, because, you know, language can be misconstrued, misinterpreted, too formal, etc. So I've kinda given up on A+ content on those foreign sites.

For the sake of this thread, I just checked out some of my A+ international content. Turns out Amazon took my sci fi content in Germany, even though it has English in it, but did not take my witch series content. So their acceptances appear a bit random.

[Bill Hiatt]

How did you get the login to the de site to be in English?

Was everything after that in english or german?

When I first opened the German site, it was in English. That didn't used to be the case, but apparently, Amazon has done something to make it work that way. I had to switch it back into German.

After that, the product descriptions in general were in German. KDP titles like mine were in English. I suppose I could have submitted German ones through Author Central, bot someone who couldn't read an English product description certainly wouldn't have been able to read the book, so why bother?

[Bill Hiatt]

That being the case, I don't see who Amazon would object to an English "From the Publisher" message.

Thing is, I'm not sure if my content was rejected internationally for language content or for something else. One of the problems with A+ content rejections is it doesn't always say why the content wasn't accepted.

I hesitate to use a translator. It's too easy to write something completely nonsensical. Whenever I write even a sentence in another language in a book, I research it like crazy, because, you know, language can be misconstrued, misinterpreted, too formal, etc. So I've kinda given up on A+ content on those foreign sites.

For the sake of this thread, I just checked out some of my A+ international content. Turns out Amazon took my sci fi content in Germany, even though it has English in it, but did not take my witch series content. So their acceptances appear a bit random.

Both the fact that reasons for rejection aren't always clear and the fact that acceptances seem random have been complaints since the beginning. I was hoping Amazon had made some of the system a little more user-friendly. However, it took years for Amazon to straighten out the series pages, so it may take as long to get A+ to really work.

At least my initial fear, which was that Amazon would get everyone used to A+ and then start charging for it, hasn't come to pass. After all, in the old days, Amazon charged quite a bit for custom content on the product pages. That it suddenly became free (though in a rather constrained form) seemed suspicious. It's nice to see that Amazon didn't live down to my expectations on that point.

[PJ Post]

The simple test is to translate from English to whatever and then to French and then to Spanish and then back to English. With each step go back to English to see where the oops is. Take as long a route as necessary to insure you've got it right. I would imagine GPT is pretty good at simple translations. It's an option.

[Bill Hiatt]

The simple test is to translate from English to whatever and then to French and then to Spanish and then back to English. With each step go back to English to see where the oops is. Take as long a route as necessary to insure you've got it right. I would imagine GPT is pretty good at simple translations. It's an option.

That's a good suggestion. But for me, part of the issue is whether it's actually worth it to translate elements on the product page when the book is only available in English. I'd say it isn't. But if I ever decide to publish in other languages, I'll try your suggestion.