Authors, have you added A+ Content to your book pages at Amazon?
When Amazon first introduced that feature, I didn’t do it because I thought it made my book pages look junky. But recently I read a newsletter article, The Amazon A10 Update: 3 Things Every Indie Author Needs to Know, by Ferol Vernon at Written Word Media. Among the topics discussed, “Why A+ content and dwell time are suddenly critical ranking factors” caught my attention.
To quote from the raw transcript of the podcast (with some editorial cleanup for readability):
A-plus content is becoming more important because Amazon is wanting their readers or their consumers on the platform to dwell on a page longer. So this metric of dwell time, how long does somebody actually spend on a page, being engaged by the page? That is more important now.
A-plus content is a really great tool for you to be able to do that because if you don’t have it, somebody looks at the description, they scroll to the reviews … maybe they’re on the page for five seconds. If you’ve got the A-plus content, there’s more to read. You maybe extend that dwell time by two or four times as long.
Long is cool again, right? So short and snappy used to be what we would recommend for that description. And that still applies to some extent, but for this A-plus content, [you want] long. Lots of content, lots of images, lots of things that hit on the book’s themes, protagonist, and characters, to keep the reader or potential reader scrolling and dwelling. The dwell time and the scroll time are going to help your book.
Long, eh, Ferol? I like long. 😃
Enthused, I went to KDP and clicked on the Marketing tab, and then on “Manage A+ Content.” My enthusiasm grew when I saw all of the new layouts (what Amazon calls “modules”). Many of the new templates are well suited to my books and to my temperament. I chose three different modules to present A-plus content on my book pages. In them, I included review excerpts along with cover images and brief descriptions. Below are screenshots of each module. (In real life, the A-plus content looks sharper on the actual book pages at Amazon. These screenshots are a tad fuzzy. Clicking on each image will take you to the actual book page, where you can scroll down to see what shoppers see.)
Adverse Reactions: A Novel of the Paranormal
The Original Waterspell Quartet
The Waterspell Linked Sequels
Showcasing a Series
I seldom find any reason to praise Amazon, but I do like the new modules that authors can customize for our books’ A-Plus Content. The ability to assign multiple ASINs to each module is extremely valuable for showcasing a series. The four-book image, WATERSPELL Fantasy Series, shows up on each of those four individual book pages and also on the related page for the boxed set. The two-book image shows up on The Karenina Chronicles page and again on The Fires of Farsinchia page. Grouping the books in this way gives the reader a visual summary of the quartet (which is really one long story told in four volumes), and then the two-book image ties together the linked sequels that tell of Nina’s homecoming and her further adventures.
I don’t know whether this new A-plus content will make the books more visible at Amazon, or affect their ratings, but I like how the modules look on the individual book pages. Over time, I may further refine the content. As a product of a couple hours’ work, however, these three modules present my books in a way that satisfactorily makes the connections among them more obvious to the casual book-shopper. That’s a plus, indeed.
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