Do I Get An A+?
Firstly, I am thrilled to share that Amazon.com selected Necessary Sins, the first book in my Lazare Family Saga, as one of their Prime Reads for the months of September, October, and November 2021. If you’re a U.S. member of Amazon Prime, that means you can read the Kindle edition of Necessary Sins for free now through November 30, 2021. Alas, this offer is available only to U.S. Prime members. Amazon makes the rules, not I!
Please help me spread the word to other U.S. Prime members who enjoy historical fiction, family sagas, stories of forbidden love, or stories set in Charleston! Click on the image below or here’s the link to Necessary Sins on Amazon.com.
Secondly, I’m glad I was able to get together my A+ Content before my Prime Read months—but now there are considerably more eyes on my book pages, and I’m second-guessing my choices!
What is A+ Content, you ask? It’s an area on each Amazon book page where the publisher can add more information and/or pretty images. This area used to be available only to big names, but now Amazon is allowing all publishers to use it—including indie publishers like yours truly.
We have to follow certain parameters, and we get five spots per item to fill with A+ content, which must be approved by Amazon folks. I had to decide what aspects of my fiction to feature and then hunt down images. I wanted a common theme across all four of my books. I decided to focus on my settings and have my captions be a narrative—but I had to avoid spoilers.
Below, I’ve shared all of my A+ content. The titles are links to how the images actually appear on Amazon, under the “From the Publisher” section on each book page. Each novel has four unique images followed by a series image that I used for all the books.
Any text in the A+ images has to be legible on both desktop computers and mobile devices. Therein lies the rub. In making the text large enough for mobile devices, I may have made it too large to look good on desktops. What do you think? Is my A+ text too shouty and overwhelming? Should I dial it back a little?
Book One of the Lazare Family Saga: Necessary Sins
Book Two of the Lazare Family Saga: Lost Saints
Book Three of the Lazare Family Saga: Native Stranger
Book Four of the Lazare Family Saga: Sweet Medicine
What did you think? I agonized over every detail, from images to colors to fonts, and I want to make sure my A+ content is fabulous before I expand it to the UK, Canadian, and Australian Amazon sites.
In this post, at least one image for each book is clickable and will take you to a secret page of behind-the-scenes info. I purchased most of the images from a stock site called DepositPhotos, and I added text using Canva.
Finally, on the Amazon pages for Necessary Sins and Lost Saints, you may have noticed that these first two books in The Lazare Family Saga are now available in hardcover! Native Stranger and Sweet Medicine will be in hardcover soon. The conversion process is lengthy and complicated, but the end product is both beautiful and durable. I can hardly wait till the set is complete!