Amazon Author Central Editorial Reviews: Proper Formatting?!

About this video

Dale explains how to use the Editorial Reviews section in Amazon Author Central, which he describes as a free one-stop shop for author brands for anyone publishing on Amazon, regardless of whether they used KDP, IngramSpark or another route. The section is not for copying Amazon reviews, which would be redundant, but for showcasing off-Amazon reviews from reputable sources, plus Product Description, From the Author, From Inside the Flap, From the Back Cover and About the Author material. He gives two benefits: third-party credibility when a source like Kirkus praises the book, and a theory that additional metadata aids indexing and discoverability. The walkthrough covers signing in at author.amazon.com, selecting the book and the Kindle or print version (there is no audiobook support, and he says the feature is US-only), and following Author Central’s guidelines: credit sources, keep outside quotes to one to two sentences under fair use, limit reviews to 3,000 characters, and use plain text. Because pasting often collapses text into one wall, his solution is HTML generated with Dave Chesson’s Kindlepreneur book description generator set to Amazon Editorial Review, then pasted, previewed and saved. He says changes take about three to five business days to appear, and the same process must be repeated for each format version.

Key takeaways

• Use Editorial Reviews for off-Amazon reviews and flap/back-cover copy, not for duplicating Amazon reviews.
• Credit every source, keep outside quotes to one to two sentences, and stay within 3,000 characters.
• Plain pasting often breaks formatting in the new Author Central dashboard; generate HTML instead.
• Use the Kindlepreneur book description generator’s Editorial Review tab, paste the code, preview, then save.
• Repeat the process separately for Kindle and print versions and allow three to five business days for it to appear.

Episode details: published February 28, 2021 · 7:49 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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