Training #448 – Hot Seats, Ask Us Anything, and Amazon Top Picks

This Ask Us Anything sessions started with a bit of news about a new feature being rolled out, called Amazon Top Picks. Basically, Amazon is testing displaying what they think customers will buy from an author page rather than showing all of that author's books, though in some cases they are displaying an “All Books” carousel as well.

We discussed some of the implications of this new “feature”, as well as Erin's suggestions around crafting books in a series and keeping in touch with your readers so that you can work around these changes.

We also covered:

• Anita Grayson's question about changing the size of one image in her children's book.
• Anna Hernandez's questions about getting books into libraries and how to price books.
• Nadine Refsell's hot seat for her children's book description and how best to combine multiple descriptions into one effective description.
• Vicki L's question about selling composition books on Amazon.
• Marya's question about whether you need multiple ISBNs to sell your book through different distributors.
• Laura Golowski's question about how to update ISBN metadata after purchasing.
• Vicki L's question about formatting text page along with image page spreads in a children's book.
• Jean Berry's question about the advantages of going to an industry conference.