Amazon has decided to allow authors to directly post blurbs and other descriptive information in the “Editorial Reviews” section of their books’ product pages. To participate, authors must be enrolled in Amazon’s Author Central program, which is free.

Previously, authors were allowed only to add or change content through a Web form, and Amazon’s cataloging department personnel often ignored the requests.

Now, authors can update or correct product information directly through Author Central. Here’s the way this gateway looks for my book Plug Your Book!:

Now authors can directly post book review excerpts of up to 250 characters. Amazon won’t allow use of longer copyrighted material because that would violate “fair use” guidelines.

Amazon has also clarified the character limits of other “Editorial Reviews” fields: The “About the Author” section is limited to 2,000 characters, “Product Descriptions” are now capped at 2,400 characters , and the “From the Author,” “From the Inside Flap,” and “From the Back Cover” sections are limited to 8,000 characters or less.

What if you have multiple formats of an edition, such as Kindle and paperback? Update the paperback through Author Central, and the same content will show up on the Kindle page, with the notation “this text refers to the Paperback edition.”

Trade reviews already appearing on your book’s detail page, which Amazon imports itself, can’t be removed.

As before, authors have no control over the “Customer Reviews” posted to a book’s page by readers.

Complete instructions are on this page, and I’ve reproduced them below:

Editorial Reviews

You can update the Product Description, About the Author section, From the Author section, From the Inside Flap, from the Back Cover, and Reviews in the Editorial Reviews section of your book’s Product Detail Page. Here’s how:

1. Log in to Author Central (http://authorcentral.amazon.com).
2. Click the “Books” tab available on the top of the page.
3. Click on the book you are updating Editorial Reviews for.
4. Click the link to update the Editorial Reviews.
5. Make your changes
6. Click “Request change.”

Your submissions will appear on the website in 3-5 days.

Review Guidelines

Here are some things to avoid when updating your reviews:

• Phone numbers, addresses, URLs.
• Time-sensitive statements or statements specific to one edition or listing
• Advertisements or promotional material.
• Availability, price, or alternative ordering/shipping information.
• Profanity or spiteful remarks.
• Obscene or distasteful content.

We know that Editorial Reviews are important to a customer’s
discovery of your book on Amazon.com, and that you sometimes need to make updates or suggest corrections to them.

To learn about the feature, take a look at the Editorial Reviews help page, https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/help?topicID=200436740 You
can create up to 5 new Reviews, and request to make corrections to Reviews that have already been submitted by your publisher. You can also
update content for author-pertinent topics like “About the Author,” “From the Author,” and “Product Description.”  Changes you make will
appear on the website in 1-2 days; if you encounter any difficulty, don’t hesitate to contact our dedicated author support team.

Since the launch of Author Central, we have solicited you for feedback on the program.  We’d like to get more feedback on your experiences and insights on “authorship” via a brief survey. We take care not to spam you; rest assured that surveys like this are used to develop our services to better fit your needs.  Visit http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/amazon_authorcentral to give us more feedback.

Sincerely,
Author Central Team
AuthorCentral.Amazon.com
https://authorcentral.amazon.com

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