Booksellers Take Note: New Algorithm Comes with New Rules
If I say the words “A10 Algorithm” does it mean anything to you? If you’re an author who sells books on Amazon, it should.
A10 is the newest Amazon algorithm, and it affects the way Amazon AI learns about your books, who it sends in the direction of your books, and most of all, how it decides whether to help push your books up that ranking ladder.
A podcast by Ferol Vernon at Written Word Media explained what A10 is all about as well as what we authors should do to update our books’ product pages to appeal to this new algorithm.
No longer does Amazon work the way it once did. This is a pretty big deal, and as I listened to Ferol's podcast, I thought, I must tell my author subscribers!
There are three ways in which A10 works differently from the A9 and other A’s that came before.
A10 puts LESS emphasis on keywords, more emphasis on the sales copy the potential customer will connect with. That’s right, those SEO words you so carefully chose to include in your book description, categories, and keywords are no longer running the show.
They’re still important, but not as heavily weighted as they once were.
With A10, it’s about language that describes the benefits of reading your book. Not just nonfiction books, mind you, but novels. So, you’ll want to describe how the book makes the reader feel.
Is it a thriller that leaves readers on the edge of their seat? Or is it a tragedy that makes them reach for the tissue box? What tropes does it include? What settings?
Is it a book for reading all day at the beach or in a quiet place in front of the fire? Is it going to leave readers smiling at the happily-ever-after, or will it make them contemplate the future of humanity for days?
Describe the protagonists. Describe the urban or historic or magical world. Mention the book’s main genre (mystery, thriller, sci-fi, crime) and subgenres (romantic, spy, dark fantasy, time travel).
A10 prefers a more natural-sounding approach than trying to fit certain words into every sentence in the summary.
In addition, the copy on the product page must match the feel of the cover. The AI can read images now, and it wants everything to work together. If your copy describes a flowery romance and for some reason your cover is dark and intimidating, that’s a problem.
You’ll also want to give your new/existing A-Plus content a once-over (something I desperately need to do). Do you have images there? You should, and they should highlight the book’s themes. The feel of the book. The vibe of your product. Whatever is there should be interesting enough to inspire the shopper to linger.
Have you uploaded review quotes in the Editorial section? What about a video? Anything that helps convince a customer to buy the book is a good idea for the page.
“Long is cool again,” one of the podcasters said, as in the longer the customer lingers, the more the algorithm will like your page.
Reader Reviews. Reaching the fifty-plus mark is important. The written reviews are metadata for the AI, which is looking for what the book is about, how the book makes the reader feel, who enjoyed the book, and who will enjoy the book. So, when a reviewer says, “I stayed up all night reading because I had to know what would happen,” the AI takes note.
Ten reviews have never been enough to grab the algorithm’s attention, but fifty or more should do the trick. Once the book is published, make a concerted effort to acquire those reviews.
People seem less eager to write reviews in general these days, so you'll have to remind your readers to do so—your family, friends, ARC readers, anyone that you know has read the book.External traffic is more important than internal traffic. This is a big switch from earlier versions of the algorithm. In the past, authors used Amazon ads to send readers to their titles. But A10 prefers traffic that comes from outside the Amazon website. External traffic will be weighted more heavily than the traffic that comes from within.
Why? One hypothesis is that Amazon isn’t being used by as many shoppers as it once was. Far more websites compete for book buyers at this point, from authors’ Shopify accounts to Bookshop.org, BN.com, and others. If Amazon encourages authors to send outside traffic their way, they’ll potentially acquire shoppers who may not have visited Amazon otherwise.
It makes sense, but what does it mean for us authors? It means that when you send out your newsletter and subscribers click the Amazon link for your book, the A10 algorithm will look kindly on it. Same goes for those who click from Instagram or TikTok, Facebook ads, and promo sites like Written Word Media. So be sure to keep sending the traffic from external sources.
Last, your conversion rate matters. Hopefully accomplishing the three above items will result in book sales for you. The algorithm wants to see not only the traffic coming to your page but also the sales. Some visits must convert into sales.
Consistent traffic and sales over time pleases the algorithm more than one-off spikes. For this reason, plan a marketing attack that occurs over, say, the span of a week. Doing so will provide the type of results that the A10 algorithm rewards.
Authors who write series will do well with this due to the nature of series. The reader buys their first book, then comes back for the second and maybe the third. Consistent sales can continue for weeks or even months in this way.
Here’s something else you may not know: The Amazon ranking updates used to occur throughout the day. Not anymore. Amazon rankings are updated only once a day now.
I want to thank Written Word for their podcast. For those who would like to listen to the podcast directly, click the following link: https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/the-amazon-a10-update-3-things-every-indie-author-needs-to-know/
