The Amazon A10 Update: 3 Things Every Indie Author Needs to Know

Amazon quietly overhauled its search and recommendation algorithm — and it's already affecting how books get discovered and ranked. In this episode, Ricci and Ferol dig into the Amazon A10 update and break down the top three things indie authors need to know right now drawing on an actual academic paper about the technology powering it. You’ll hear everything from how Amazon now reads your book page (literally, including your cover), to why external traffic suddenly matters way more than Amazon ads, to why spreading your marketing over several days beats a single-day spike. This episode is your practical guide to navigating the new landscape. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN: 2:43 Today's Topic: The Amazon A10 Algorithm 3:21 Change Is Frustrating — Let's Acknowledge That 4:43 What Is A10? The Cosmo Paper Explained 6:47 #1: Product Page Optimization 8:01 Descriptions: Natural Language Over Keywords 10:48 Why Your Book Cover Now Matters to the Algorithm 11:35 A+ Content: Why It's More Important Than Ever 12:30 Dwell Time: Long Is Cool Again 14:25 Reviews: The 50+ Threshold 15:46 #2: External Traffic Gets More Weight 16:42 Amazon Ads Are Devalued — Here's Why 19:29 Conversion Rate & Qualified Traffic 20:33 #3: Consistent Traffic Beats One-Off Spikes 21:31 Why Series Authors Are Winning Right Now 23:25 Promo Stacks & the Elongation Strategy 25:28 You Can Set It All Up in One Sitting 26:38 Recap: The 3 Key Changes 27:54 The A10 Checklist + What's Coming from WWM RESOURCES & LINKS: – COSMO: A large-scale e-commerce common sense knowledge generation and serving system at Amazon: https://www.amazon.science/publicatio... – See past podcast episodes here: https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/podc... Want to learn more ways to reach readers? Visit writtenwordmedia.com for author resources, book promotion tools, and more. The Written Word Podcast is produced by Heart Centered Podcasting. © 2026 Written Word Media, Inc. All rights reserved. #indieauthor #amazonalgorithm #bookmarketing #selfpublishing #kindleunlimited #authortips #a10algorithm #bookpromotion #indiepublishing #writtenwordmedia #authorlife #publishingtips #amazonkdp #booksales #writingcommunity