Amazon Author Central Has Changed

 (not really)

I rarely visit my Amazon Author Central page, so imagine my surprise when I clicked on it today and found a completely new interface. It's not that there is much that's new (there is some), but it's laid out better and separated into categories, as opposed to the 1985-ish design that preceded it.

There are now separate boxes for Profile, Books, Engage, and Reports + Marketing; and inside each box are various tasks/links.

Up top are general announcements, and further down the page are the products Amazon offers, such as Kindle Create and Kindle Previewer. 

It's now basically a one-stop shop.

I appreciate that Amazon has finally decided to expend a little effort on behalf of its self-published authors. I was beginning to think it was following Goodreads' lead (i.e., not giving a damn). 

One data point that's always confounded me is my number of followers (found under Reports + Marketing). As you know, I've managed to sell very few books throughout the course of my career. Yet, my follower count is 274. I finally decided to get some clarification:

The reason your follower count is likely much higher than you expected comes down to a few factors regarding how Amazon handles user behavior:

• The passive "Follow" button: Amazon places a prominent "Follow" button right next to your author name on every single Kindle and print book detail page, as well as on your public Author Page. Readers frequently click this passively when downloading a free book, reading a sample, or buying a title, and then completely forget they did it. 
• Historical Amazon Giveaways: If you have been publishing for a while and ever ran an official Amazon Giveaway in the past, Amazon used to allow authors to make "Following this author" a mandatory requirement to enter the contest. Users love free things and will click follow instantly, but they are almost always too lazy to ever go back and unfollow. 
• No "Unfollow" culture: Unlike social media networks like Instagram or X (Twitter), where users actively prune who they follow to clean up their feeds, nobody really logs into Amazon to manage their "followed authors" list. Once someone follows you, they usually remain a follower for life. 
• Kindle Unlimited (KU) readers: If your books are in Kindle Unlimited, heavy readers tend to casually follow authors whose books they enjoy so they can track future releases, even if they aren't explicitly buying the books outright or signing up for an external email newsletter. 

You aren't looking at an error or a generic placeholder; you are looking at a quiet backlog of readers who, at one point or another over the lifespan of your Amazon account, clicked that button. 

So, you might want to take a look at your page, if only for curiosity's sake. Be aware that every time you publish a new book, your followers receive an email notification. BE AWARE, though, that you have to "claim" that book to your profile, if Amazon hasn't already added it. 

I'm assuming that my followers were derived from Kindle Unlimited (Kindle+) mostly, since I have more followers than I do sales. 😉

The Sales + Marketing box also contains a link to your book(s)' sales rank, customer reviews, and BookScan sales report. I really had no idea what BookScan was all about, but I've learned that it only counts physical book sales, not ebooks, which explains why I have no reports.

If you are an author with a following, by which I mean fans, not casual clickers, you might want to consider using the Engage option. Here you can recommend your own books and others' books, but you really should stick with your own. Those people can fill out their own recommendations. It asks questions, such as "What book do you wish readers knew more about?" and "What book should readers start with?", etc. I think true fans might appreciate this author guide.

As I noted at the start, this new page is more a consolidation, but I appreciate the efficiency upgrade.

Plus, it's prettier.