How to Use Amazon Author Central
Amazon Author Central (authorcentral.amazon.com) is a separate platform from KDP that controls how you appear as an author on Amazon's retail side. Your KDP account handles publishing and royalties. Author Central handles your public-facing author identity — your author page, biography, photo, and the listing of your books under a single author identity.
Many authors publish on KDP for months or years without ever setting up Author Central. This is a missed opportunity: a complete Author Central profile improves your author page's appearance in search results, helps Amazon's systems correctly attribute all your books to you, and gives potential readers the context that turns a one-book purchase into a long-term readership.
Author Central Is Separate from KDP
The first thing to understand is that Author Central and KDP are separate systems that need to be managed separately. Changes you make in KDP (your book description, for example) do not automatically update Author Central. Changes you make in Author Central (your biography) do not come from KDP. They share your Amazon account login but operate independently.
Author Central has separate versions for each Amazon marketplace: Amazon.com (US), Amazon.co.uk (UK), Amazon.de (Germany), Amazon.fr (France), Amazon.es (Spain), Amazon.it (Italy), Amazon.co.jp (Japan), Amazon.com.br (Brazil), and others. Your profile information does not automatically copy across marketplaces — you need to set up your profile in each marketplace where you want a complete author page.
Step 1: Access Author Central
Go to authorcentral.amazon.com and sign in with your Amazon account — the same account you use for KDP. If this is your first time accessing Author Central, you'll be prompted to create your author profile.
Step 2: Create Your Author Profile
Author Name
Enter your author name exactly as it appears on your book covers and in your KDP author field. Author Central creates a searchable author page under this name. If you publish under multiple pen names, you may need separate Author Central accounts for each pen name — or in some cases, Author Central allows you to claim books under different pen names from a single account. Contact Author Central support if you publish under multiple names.
Author Biography
Your biography appears on your Amazon author page and is visible to every reader who clicks your name in a book listing. Write it for readers, not for credentials. A compelling author biography that matches your genre's tone — warm for romance and contemporary fiction, authoritative for nonfiction, atmospheric for thriller and horror — does more for book sales than a list of academic credentials or publishing history.
The most effective author biographies for selling books: identify your genre clearly, mention your most popular or recent series by name, provide a brief personal detail that makes you human (where you live, a family member, a passion connected to your writing), and end with a call to action (directing readers to your newsletter or next book). Keep it warm and specific rather than generic and list-like.
Author Photo
Upload a professional author photo. On Amazon, your photo appears on your author page and occasionally in Amazon's recommendation contexts. The photo does not need to be taken by a professional photographer, but it should be:
Clear and well-lit — no dark, blurry, or heavily filtered photos
Showing your face clearly — not a logo, a cartoon avatar, or an image without you in it
Appropriate to your genre — a friendly, approachable photo for cozy mystery and romance; a more formal headshot for business nonfiction; a creative or atmospheric photo for literary fiction
Minimum 300 × 300 pixels — Amazon recommends at least 600 × 600 px
Step 3: Claim Your Books
After creating your profile, you need to claim your books — tell Author Central which books on Amazon are yours. This is how Amazon links your books to your author page so they all appear on your profile rather than being orphaned across different author identities.
How to Claim a Book
From your Author Central dashboard, click Books in the top navigation
Click Add more books
Search for your book by title or ASIN
When your book appears in results, click This is my book or I wrote this
Amazon verifies the claim — this is usually instant for books published through KDP under the same account, but can take 24–48 hours for books with different publisher names or account affiliations
Multiple Pen Names and Author Name Variations
If your books are listed under slightly different author name spellings — 'J. Smith' vs. 'John Smith' vs. 'J Smith' — Amazon may have created separate author identities for each variation. Author Central allows you to merge these author identity variations so all your books appear under a single unified author page.
From your Author Central account, check your Books list for any unlinked variations. If you find separate author pages for name variations, contact Author Central support through the Help section to request that they be merged into your main author page.
⚠ If you publish under multiple distinct pen names that you want to keep separate (different genres, different author identities), do not merge them. Keep separate Author Central accounts or contact support about how to maintain separate author pages while sharing a single login. Merging pen names that should stay separate is very difficult to reverse.
Step 4: Editorial Reviews
The Editorial Reviews section on Amazon product pages appears between the book description and the customer reviews section. It is separate from customer reviews and is controlled by you through Author Central — not by Amazon.
Editorial Reviews is where you can post:
Blurbs from other authors or industry figures
Advance praise from readers, book bloggers, or review outlets
Excerpts from professional reviews (in publications, on websites, etc.)
Your own author's note about the book (positioned as an 'author note' rather than a review)
Adding an Editorial Review
From your Author Central dashboard, click Books and select the title you want to add a review to
Scroll to the Editorial Reviews section and click Add
Enter the review text and the source (the person or publication it came from)
Save the review — it typically appears on the Amazon product page within 24–72 hours
You can add multiple editorial reviews per title. There is no hard maximum, but more than five or six reviews in this section can look cluttered. Select your strongest two or three blurbs.
⚠ Do not add fabricated reviews, reviews from yourself under a pseudonym, or reviews from close family members. Amazon's guidelines require that editorial reviews be genuine third-party endorsements. Fake reviews violate Amazon's policies and can result in your Author Central account being restricted.
Step 5: A+ Content
Amazon's A+ Content (formerly Enhanced Brand Content for authors) allows authors to add rich visual content to their book's product page — formatted text with custom headers, images, comparison tables, and branded visual elements that appear below the standard product description.
A+ Content appears below your main book description and above the customer reviews section. It gives you additional space to expand on your book's world, your series, your author story, or your book's unique value proposition. Well-designed A+ Content can meaningfully increase conversion on Amazon product pages.
Accessing A+ Content
A+ Content for books is managed through Author Central rather than through KDP. Access it from the Books section of your Author Central account by selecting a title and looking for the A+ Content option. Amazon has been rolling out A+ Content access to more KDP authors — if you do not see the option yet, it may become available as Amazon expands the program.
A+ Content Best Practices
Use high-quality images — your book cover in multiple treatments, setting imagery that matches your book's world
Add a compelling series overview if your book is part of a series — show all the books in order
Include an expanded author story with your photo — goes further than the biography in building reader connection
Use comparison tables for nonfiction — showing what your book covers vs. what it doesn't, or how it compares to related topics
Keep text concise — A+ Content is visual-first; long text blocks underperform image-forward layouts
Step 6: Author Page Features
Beyond biography and books, Author Central offers several features for enriching your author page.
Events
You can add upcoming author events — book signings, virtual events, conference appearances, library talks — to your Author Central profile. Events appear on your author page and may be surfaced by Amazon in regional search results. Add events from the Events tab in Author Central.
Blog Feed
Author Central allows you to connect an RSS feed to your author page. If you have an author blog or Substack that publishes an RSS feed, you can add the feed URL and Amazon will display your recent posts on your author page. This is a low-effort way to keep your author page feeling current and active without manually updating Author Central.
Step 7: Set Up Author Pages in Other Marketplaces
After setting up your US Author Central page, set up your profile in the UK marketplace at authorcentral.amazon.co.uk and in any other Amazon marketplaces where you have significant readership. Each marketplace has its own Author Central system and your profile information does not sync across them automatically.
You must claim your books separately in each marketplace. The book claim process is the same as the US process — search by title or ASIN in each marketplace's Author Central and claim your books there.
For most indie authors, US (authorcentral.amazon.com) and UK (authorcentral.amazon.co.uk) are the highest priority marketplaces to set up. Amazon.de (German) and Amazon.co.jp (Japanese) are worth considering if you have significant readership in those markets.
Author Central and Your KDP Account: What Syncs and What Doesn't
Author Central is your public-facing Amazon presence — the author page that readers visit when they click your name in a book listing. ScribeCount tracks your Amazon sales and royalties from KDP. Together, Author Central (who you are) and ScribeCount (how your books are performing) give you the complete picture of your Amazon author presence: your brand identity and your business performance.
Common Author Central Mistakes
Not setting up Author Central at all — living with a blank or auto-generated author page that loses reader trust
Writing a biography that reads like a resume rather than author-to-reader communication
Not claiming all books — leaving some titles orphaned without an author page connection
Adding fabricated editorial reviews — policy violation with real consequences
Not setting up UK and other marketplace Author Central pages — UK readers see an incomplete author page
Never updating the biography after it is first written — letting it become stale
Not using the Editorial Reviews section for genuine blurbs and advance praise you have received
Amazon Author Central is a marketing tool that costs nothing and takes an afternoon to set up correctly. A complete, current, reader-focused author page with a clear biography, a professional photo, all your books claimed and linked, and genuine editorial reviews makes every one of your Amazon book listings more credible and more compelling. It is one of the simplest, highest-impact things any author on Amazon can do — and most authors never do it.
-Randall Wood