Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast
Ready to supercharge your author journey? Join bestselling author and book marketing maven Penny Sansevieri and savvy publishing insider Amy Cornell for lively, no-nonsense conversations filled with smart strategies, creative inspiration, and publishing know-how you can actually use.
Whether you’re self-published, traditionally published, or somewhere in between, this podcast delivers real-world advice to help you sell more books, build your platform, and thrive in the ever-evolving publishing landscape. From clever promo hacks to critical industry insights, each episode is designed to move the needle on your success.
Fresh ideas. Actionable tips. Unfiltered talk.
If you’re serious about your author career, hit subscribe and tune in—your next big breakthrough could be one episode away.
Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast
The Great Author Central Lockout: Amazon's Latest Frustration
Navigating Amazon's constantly shifting landscape is challenging enough for authors, but now there's a new frustration to contend with. In this eye-opening episode, Penny and Amy tackle the latest Amazon Author Central crisis that's preventing authors from updating crucial marketing content on their profiles. Penny and Amy present the issue, as well as solutions!
Drawing from their direct experience helping clients navigate this issue, Amy and Penny provide a practical, step-by-step solution for getting your Author Central updates implemented despite Amazon's resistance.
The duo speculates whether these issues might signal upcoming platform changes, perhaps even a return to the more feature-rich Author Central of pre-December 2022.
Have you encountered this Amazon Author Central issue? We'd love to hear about your experience! Subscribe to our weekly episodes to stay informed about Amazon's ever-changing landscape and ensure your books maintain maximum visibility and appeal on the platform.
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Hello and welcome back to the Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast. This is Penny Sanseviery and Amy Cornell, and I for one am really excited. We haven't recorded a show in a while. We pre-recorded because I went to Belgium, which was awesome, and so we pre-recorded a whole bunch of shows, so this has been the first time back in the studio for a few weeks, right.
Speaker 2:I know it's exciting and we just had so many great show outlines that we were just, you know, chomping at the bit to get them recorded. So that was fun. And then we're like, oh wow, the added bonus was that we got ahead.
Speaker 1:I know, I know, and now we have more really great show outlines that I am very excited, super excited about doing. So we're glad to be back. I know many of you are. By the time this hits, we will have passed the nice three-day Labor Day weekend and many of you have. You know. Back to school, back to life. Fall, I love fall, I love fall. I'm so excited, I'm so over summer and I'm working on another book. I'm really excited about this book, amy, and I think I mentioned this to you in email.
Speaker 1:I have been seeing so much micro learning on social media. So there's a lot of micro learning, whether it's, you know, reader's Digest versions of books, like if you don't have time to sit down with an entire book and you want to know and most of this applies obviously to nonfiction. There's a lot of micro-learning going on. So I had this really cool idea that I was going to create a series of micro-learning books dedicated each to one topic. So the first topic is doing local promotion and local events, which I've blended into this one book because I think a lot of authors overlook local, and we've done a couple of shows on doing local, focusing on your own backyard, as well as all the other things that you're doing, focusing on your own backyard, as well as all the other things that you're doing. So I'm really excited about this because I think that our ability to spend, you know, not that long books are ever going to go away, but I think that our ability to spend hours learning about something that feels so foreign to authors is really tough, mm-hmm, you know, yeah, so I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 1:I'm also really and I posted this, by the way, on our social so, if you get a chance to please report this account, that TikTok. So there's a TikTok account that's actually pretending to be me and asking authors for money and now that account has gone private. So, because I went on there the other day to see if it was still active and that account has now gone private, I'm like, well, it's just like I'm still going to report you because you're fake pretending to be me, like it's just the craziest thing you know. Like, why are you fake pretending to be? I don't know Taylor Swift, or something Like why would you fake pretending to be?
Speaker 1:We found out because we had an author contact us and say, hey, is this you? Because this person just asked me for money. I just freaking hate that. So anyway, yeah, be on the lookout, check my socials. I've got something up there about that. If you were on TikTok and you can, this is you know. This is like another reason why I should be hating TikTok. I'm like, oh my gosh, now this stupid fake account. So, speaking of things that really rattle us, we're talking about a brand new issue with Amazon Author Central, and I got to tell you when we were in the green room and we were talking about this, I had my head in my hands a lot Because, frigging Amazon, you know, every time we turn around, they seem like they're doing something dastardly I guess, for lack of a better term Making the author's life so much harder. And Amy discovered this issue, because Amy does a lot of our Author Central optimizations, and she discovered this issue trying to access an Author Central account on Amazon, and you got some interesting feedback from that, did you not?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so basically, I mean we do this a lot, so, for what it's worth, it's like this has become pretty second nature now. You know, we've got great instructions for our clients and most of our clients actually do all these updates themselves, but every once in a while I'm more than happy to help out and while I was in there which was helpful I got to see it with my own eyes. You can't access this because you cannot add editorial reviews. You need to contact your publisher. I'm like what is happening, like, and of course my mind just starts racing Like what did I not like? Did I miss something? What is you know what I mean? Because it's like I've literally never seen that before.
Speaker 2:Up to that point, a client hadn't reported that issue yet. But then, go figure, within that same week we had multiple clients running into the same issue, which sent me down. You know an odyssey path of working with support and all these other things. I will say I'm glad I it happened to one of our clients, so I got to see firsthand how to resolve this. But whoa, what a mess, you know. I mean we're talking the first one. We're talking at least a dozen emails, penny.
Speaker 1:That's unbelievable. So, basically, what Amazon Author Central has done is it's limiting. It's telling authors that they can't. The long and short of it is it's telling authors that they can't update their Author Central, that they need publisher permission to update their Author Central, which is a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie. We're calling out the lies on the show because the author always controls their Author Central account, never the publisher, never, ever, ever, in no circumstance. So why is Amazon lying?
Speaker 2:Amy, isn't that wild. And these the things that we're talking about updating. It's like about the author from the author, from the inside flap you can even add alternate back cover copy. And you know some clients or some authors excuse me, they don't always release a print book right away Sometimes the Kindle edition, where you don't have a back cover copy. You know what I mean. So it's so great. These fields are fantastic because and we've done shows on this before, so anybody that's been listening for a while knows all these author central fields are fantastic opportunities to work in keywords, to connect with your market, to talk about your new unique selling points, your unique point of view, dig deeper into who you are as an author, your story. I mean it's amazing, but these are quite literally only fields that are offered through Author Central. They are not on the KDP publishing side. They don't exist anywhere else. So just the fact that Amazon's error is saying you don't have access to this, you need to work with your publisher is just mind-numbing, right, because that's a contradiction in itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's no way that that, but it will send authors. It will send authors down a rabbit hole. Now, I don't know why you think that Author Central is doing this, but I think that. So Amazon gets glitchy. Right, that's number one. They get glitchy and then they just let their support people in India, these poor people like just get all these random emails from authors like I can't update my. One thing I know has always been true is that Amazon will block, like if you have a publisher, amazon will block your ability to edit your editorial, to go into your editorial reviews page. That's always been a thing, because the publisher sets it up that way that they own it. But generally speaking, authors can update anything else on their Author Central page. That's never been an issue.
Speaker 2:Right, and this reminds me of when did this happen, penny? Where your description, where that got really wonky. Remember that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know where you're used to. We're used to easily be able to go to Author Central and update your book description and it would appear the way it was supposed to, and then it just went haywire.
Speaker 2:Yes, the formatting was bad and it just got so complicated and we eventually started telling people, like don't do that, just don't do that, like don't even go there, it's going to screw it up, it's going to be hard to get it fixed, like all that, and this has shades of that. You know what I mean With the like oh, you can't ask. Like all of a sudden, now they're just pulling things away that they shouldn't be pulling away, and even according to their own instructions and their own support pages, these are things that they say are available to authors through Author Central. Very clearly, there's nothing updated in the instructions or in the support pages that indicate that this is something that publishers have control over, because, again, as we already said, it's just not true. But so, to add to the confusion, you know, amazon's not even being consistent in what they're telling you in one place contradicts what the actual instructions are in another place on the site.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that you know, when Amazon in December of 2022, amazon changed Author Central and this, obviously this date is like burned into my memory because I loved the way that Author Central, like you could upload video, you could do all the fun things. You could upload pictures, multiple pictures, not just your author. Your author picture right, link your blog. You could link your blog. Oh my gosh, I missed that so much. That was so fun.
Speaker 1:Amazon pulled all of that, but before they did that, author Central got really wonky, like there was all these, there's all this weird stuff that was happening. I really think that Amazon is going through another. I mean, maybe this, maybe it's Author Central is just broken, but there's a really good chance that Amazon is getting ready to make some changes and I hope that they're bringing back all the old things. I hope that they've heard me bitch about this enough that they're like, oh, let's just shut Penny up you know what I mean and bring these back. That would be a best-case scenario. Yeah, wouldn't that be the best-case scenario? So what have you found? I know you said you have the support tickets. I just can't even believe. So what's the solution then? So, if you have an author and whether or not they have a publisher. What do you recommend that they do to fix this or to get their updates, so they can update their to get into their author central page at a bare minimum?
Speaker 2:Right. So you have to do a support ticket. But I strongly urge you to show up with that first support ticket with a doc, like a word doc. It can just be a word doc that has all of the content you want added and organized by the different sections you want it added to. You know what I mean. You have to make this easy for them to help you. You know, help me, help you, help me, help you, right.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right, like one of those situations.
Speaker 2:So make your word doc, put in all the content that you want under from the inside, flap about the author, from the author from the back, cover things like that, cover all your bases. Put it all in there, double check it. Have somebody else double check it, then double check it. Have somebody else double check it, then double check it again, because they're not going to edit for you Once it's up there, and especially until they get this resolved. What goes up there is what's going to be up there. So get it all in a Word doc, make sure it's amazing have that ready and then start your support ticket and then you need to just very explicitly ask that they update, they add all of that content in the attachment to each individual section, as noted in the document, for what it's worth. I mean, it's kind of awful that a lot of people are dealing with this, but the benefit of that is that Author Central is used to getting these tickets. So I will say this process already from our first client that I helped to our second was so much simpler because I knew exactly what to say, what to request. I had confirmed that this is a known problem. You know what I mean. So when you show up really confident in what you're asking for and demanding, you get a resolution a lot quicker. So show up prepared, open that ticket, say you need them, that you know you can say resolution a lot quicker.
Speaker 2:So show up prepared, open that ticket, say you need them, that you know you can say I don't have access to these sections on the backend, I'm getting an error. I need you to add this content to my author central. Okay, you know, and keep it very straightforward. I say nothing, no unnecessary. You know information required because, again, like you already mentioned, penny, you never know what kind of support person you're getting. And so, even if they're very, very basic level this is a known issue on the author central side. So, even if it's a very basic support person, the simpler you keep it with just demanding what you need done. This is where it doesn't pay to be nice or to say can you please, is it possible? None of that? Say I need you to Please confirm when it's been completed. You know what I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so starting the email off saying that they know that this is a known issue makes a difference. They know that this is a known issue.
Speaker 2:It makes a huge difference, absolutely Okay. Yep, this is a known issue. I'm getting an error. I am unable to access all of my Author Central fields. I have included an attachment that has everything I need you to add for me, for my retail page, you know, and essentially, tell them you want a confirmation when it's been added. Okay, ashley, just tell them you want a confirmation when it's been added, okay.
Speaker 2:And then definitely for what it's worth. I mean and Amazon says this too that updates to Author Central happen within one to two business days. So really stick to that. Put a reminder on your phone, on your calendar, whatever it is. Check your Amazon retail page, do a refresh, do a hard refresh you know what I mean To really make sure. Or use a browser you don't use all the time. Try it on your phone, maybe even and see if it's there.
Speaker 2:If it's not go back to that ticket and ask them for a status update. You know, because this really is within one to two business days turnaround time, you should have this completed within a week. I know that maybe sounds terrible, but it may take a couple emails, but just stay on them. Because for one of our clients, for example, they made the updates to the paperback but they didn't do it on the Kindle. So we went back and said we need you to make these updates and this is where getting the right person. We need you to do the exact same thing you did for the print book that you did for the Kindle edition. And we got a different support person and they said well, it looks like you have to work with your publisher. And by then, even our client was like no, no, no, and he was on top of it already. He said so-and-so. He named the previous support person, who was a manager actually, he said so-and-so, was able to do this and said it would be done. I need this done.
Speaker 2:And they came back within a day and said we've now updated your Kindle edition as well. So really stick to your guns. Everybody listening to this. It is a thing, it is a problem. Amazon, absolutely right now, is embracing fixing it because they know it's a known problem. They really can't blame anything else right now. I mean they may try initially with the publisher nonsense, ignore that. But just stick to your guns and just say like, like, I need this, I need this, I need this, you know.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that you and I talked about in the green room was potentially self-publishing, like even if you have a publisher self-publishing the Kindle edition and letting the publisher handle the print. But that doesn't really make a difference. I mean, I'm a huge fan of that because for all the reasons that we talked about on this show, so you know, you have access to A-plus content, you have more control, all the other things but it's not a publisher issue. This is not a publisher. This is Amazon being weird.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is Amazon being weird. It's not technically a publisher issue, but I, you know, my suspicion is that because, in order to access all these fields that we've been talking about and I'm just going to repeat them because then, because those of you listening that may have to deal with this it's worth having them top of mind. You know, from the inside flap, from the back cover, about the author all those things, those, those things, those all exist on the same page that your editorial reviews field exists on. And so what I'm seeing is that, if you have a publisher, because you don't have the option to update your editorial reviews, that entire page that would give you access to everything else that you should have access to, you're being blocked from. So that's where the publisher aspect comes in.
Speaker 2:It's not the publisher's fault, but unfortunately, for whatever reason, amazon is now stopping everybody at the entrance point to access all of those fields, whereas before you just couldn't add editorial reviews, that field, that option, just wasn't available to you to click on, but you could do everything else. But now what's happening is that you're not even able to access that next page where you can get to all of those things, and the default error message is that you don't have access. You are not able to edit your editorial reviews. You need to contact your publisher to do this for you, and it very specifically in both of the error messages I have seen called out the editorial reviews as being the problem. So I thought, yeah, so that was really interesting. I thought so very much. Amazon is flagging for that and, for whatever reason, their system is now just stopping you a step too soon, so you still don't have access to all the other things you should have access to, whether you have a publisher or not. So that's where the weird glitch is happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's super weird. Have you seen this issue pop up with— have you seen Amazon say to authors you have to go through your publisher, even if they've self-published? I mean, has Amazon just gotten that far gone?
Speaker 2:I have not seen, I have not personally experienced that with a client that is fully self-published across the board. No, okay, okay, this has only been for clients that have a publisher or that at least used a publishing service which I won't name.
Speaker 1:But still Right, right, right, right. Yeah, it's a little, which I won't name, but still Right, right, right, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a little, it's, it's, it's, it's really huh, no, I was going to say sorry, that's just. The extra frustrating part too is that you know whether you use a publisher or publishing service. Even this is happening and it's like when you have a publishing service. I think those authors eventually figure out that you know getting things changed and altered and stuff is a little more challenging because it's just a different relationship. But what's really a bummer is that these people that have publishers, that have a good relationship with their publishers, have a great contact. That's super helpful and that's the case with one of our clients.
Speaker 2:But I felt bad too because the publisher is coming back saying I swear I can't access those fields. Nothing that we have gives us those options and I was able to at least tell the client like, yeah, that is the case. You know what I mean? They are not. But think of all the authors out there, penny, that are hearing contradicting statements from Amazon and their publisher. And who do they trust at that point? You know they're being shut down on both sides, yeah, and who do they trust at that point?
Speaker 1:You know they're being shut down on both sides. Yeah, yeah, and it's interesting because you know we've talked about this a few times Like I love me some Reddit man. I love like going on Reddit and researching and whatnot. And there's a couple of groups that I belong to and there have been a couple of conversations around this in terms of I can't access my other central Amazon's giving me a hard time, that kind of thing. So once the show drops, I'm definitely going to mention the show. And because this is, I mean, I think, a lot of authors, I'm discouraged that not enough authors really spend a lot of time updating their author central pages. I think that's always discouraging to me. When they don't like I've talked to authors before like oh, I have an author central page on Amazon. I'm like, yeah, you do. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So it's still an amazing free resource where you have all this extra content to convince people to read and buy your book. It's like what it's free for now, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, amazon decides to charge for it. Get your account now Get grandfathered in? Yeah, exactly, Exactly. But I have seen some conversation on Reddit already from authors who were just like you know, I'm trying to go in there and make changes and I don't really know what's going on. So it looks to me. It appears to me that, like everybody is dealing with this, which is just everybody who's trying to get into Amazon and make changes is dealing with this, which is just crazy to me.
Speaker 2:Right it is. It is very frustrating and again, I feel fortunate that I got to see it with my own eyes, because there's nothing more frustrating than when our clients run into challenges, and I you know what I mean to challenges and I you know what I mean. When you, when you don't experience something firsthand, it's so hard to help sometimes, especially when it comes to the Amazon beast, because how often do we deal with people saying like Amazon's telling me this and it's like, oh no, you know, but it's like okay, I saw it with my own eyes. I went through the process with some clients. Now I feel pretty confident that this is something that is fixable.
Speaker 2:But I would definitely say anybody listening that either hasn't done this or hasn't stepped into this area double check what you're, you know. Check your account, see what you have access to now and if this wasn't a you know, if you didn't have a reason to get moving on this stuff previously, this should be the kick in the butt. You know what I mean Like get moving on this stuff previously. This should be the kick in the butt. You know what I mean Like get moving on utilizing your account in all of those fields, you know. Get that content written and capitalize on the fact that Amazon is being helpful and knows how to deal with this right now. You know because, like Penny said, who knows how this could shift in a couple months?
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, Exactly. And then I think you know. The other thing is, I would love to know if you have experienced this, like if any of our listeners experience this, let us know.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, especially if you're fully self-published. I would like to know, like you said, penny, if anybody's dealing with that that hasn't used a publisher or publishing service and you're still still having issues accessing, because that would be another layer to this and I'd love to know the error they're giving you with the excuse.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. My hope is, like I said, a whole, not hope. I want Amazon to bring back the old Author Central. That would make me really happy.
Speaker 2:No, bring back a Goodreads integration on the Amazon side. I would love that. If they need ideas, I have ideas.
Speaker 1:Amazon ask us what we want. We have, as usual, check with Amy and Penny. First Check with Amy and Penny before you make changes. Thank you very much, amazon. We appreciate that. Yeah, I am. I'm really glad that we did a show on this. Again, we've done, you know, we have done so many Amazon alert shows this year it's I was looking back through the arc. It's kind of crazy how many alert shows that we've done.
Speaker 2:So I know, I know, but here's another one. If anything, stay tuned to make sure you're always on top of the Amazon changes so your book doesn't get lost.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, yes. Subscribe to the show so you get updates every time. We release a show every Friday so you can listen to us. You know, when somebody uh, write us the other day and he's like I listened to you on my bike rides, now I'm like dude, that's amazing. Um, just be, just be careful, look out for traffic, all the things, um, but subscribe to the show. When you subscribe to the show, you'll be able to post a review. Um, for whatever reason, apple doesn't let you post a review unless you're subscribed to the show. And then, like I said, you'll get alerts every time that we drop a show. Thank you so much for listening. We will see you next week. We are knee deep into September. I love it and, um, thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.
