Which A+ Content Modules Actually Work for a Book

Last reviewed by Robert Prime — August 2026

Amazon’s A+ Content Manager gives you a picker full of module templates. Almost all of them were designed for people selling cordless drills.

That is not a joke at Amazon’s expense. It is the thing to understand before you touch the picker, because the module set exists to sell physical goods with multiple photographs, measurable specifications and comparable variants. A book has one photograph (the cover), no specifications a reader cares about, and a single variant. Drop a book into a layout built for a cordless drill and you get a page that looks like a book forced into a drill-shaped hole. That is what most author A+ Content looks like, and it is why so many authors conclude the feature does nothing.

We design A+ Content for authors as a paid service — £89 for three panels, £149 for five (roughly $118 and $198, indicative at current rates) — so read this knowing we sell the thing I am about to describe. That is exactly why the useful part of this article is the list of modules to avoid, and the section near the end where I tell you when to do it yourself for nothing.

This is not a set-up walkthrough. If you have not built A+ Content before and need the click-by-click, our guide on Amazon A+ Content for KDP covers getting into A+ Content Manager, submitting a project and applying it across formats. This article assumes you are already in the module picker and staring at a screen of templates, trying to work out which ones deserve one of your slots.

The constraint that makes this a judgement call

KDP’s own A+ Content Examples help page is blunt about it: there are 17 module templates in the picker, and you may use “up to five modules per detail page layout.”

Five. That is the whole game.

If you had unlimited slots, module selection would not matter much — you would use everything and let the reader scroll. You have five, on a page section that KDP says sits “under the From the Publisher section”, where “the exact location varies” and “most readers will need to scroll to view the content.” So you are spending five slots on content most readers only reach by scrolling, usually on a phone.

That changes the question from “which module looks nicest” to “which five pieces of information are worth a scroll on a phone”, which is a much better question and one most authors never ask.

The verified module list

Amazon publishes the machine-readable list of standard module types in its own Selling Partner API model, which is the most reliable public source for what actually exists (the Seller Central help pages that describe each one sit behind a login). The API defines fifteen standard content module types. The KDP interface presents seventeen options, because a few API types surface in the picker as two separate choices — a single side-image type appears as both a left-image and a right-image option, for instance.

Here is the full API list with Amazon’s own description of each, and my verdict on whether it belongs on a book page.

Two of those verdicts need defending, because they are the ones authors argue with.

Standard Product Description Text is the module authors reach for first, because it takes up to 6,000 characters and feels generous. It is the worst use of a slot on the page. Your book description already sits above it, the module renders as an unbroken wall of left-aligned text (KDP’s page notes it is left-aligned only), and you have just spent 20% of your layout repeating something the reader has already scrolled past. If you want words on the page, use a text module with a headline, or put the words next to an image.

Standard Multiple Image Text looks brilliant in the picker — a neat thumbnail strip, click to reveal. In practice you are asking a reader who has already scrolled past the description, the reviews prompt and the “frequently bought together” carousel to make one more deliberate tap. In the layouts we build, anything behind a click may as well not exist. Put the content on the page.

What actually goes in each module

Choosing the module is half of it. The other half is knowing what content belongs there, and it differs sharply between fiction and non-fiction — which is where most generic A+ advice falls apart, because it is written for products and then lightly rewritten for books.

The opener: Standard Image & Text Overlay

This is a full-width background image with a text box floating over it. KDP’s A+ Content Examples page describes exactly how that box behaves: “The overlay box is 70% opacity, so you can faintly see the background image behind the text.” It is the only module that gives you a genuinely cinematic block, and it should almost always be your first slot.

Fiction: not the cover. The cover is already at the top of the page, at a larger size, and repeating it wastes the one big-image moment you get. Use an atmospheric image that carries the book’s world — a landscape, a texture, a period detail — with the hook line over it. The hook line is not the blurb. It is the one sentence that would make someone in a bookshop turn the book over. Eight to fourteen words.

Non-fiction: the promise, stated as an outcome, over an image that signals the domain. “The system 400 UK contractors use to price a job in under ten minutes” beats “A practical guide to pricing” every time. If you have a credential that matters — a named institution, a number of years, a measurable result — it goes here, not in slot four where nobody reaches.

The failure we fix most often on this module is text that is legible on a desktop and gone on a phone. Because the overlay box is only 70% opaque, whatever is behind your words still shows through, so a busy photograph and a thin typeface will fight each other. Amazon’s own A+ Content Guidelines explicitly prohibit “images with watermarks or small text that is unreadable when shown on mobile devices” — this is a rejection reason, not just a design opinion.

The proof: Standard Three Images and Text

Three images in a row, each with a caption block underneath. This is the module that does the most work on a book page and the one authors most consistently misuse by putting three copies of the cover in it.

Fiction: three beats of the story world, or three interior spreads if the book is illustrated, or the three books in the series with one line each. For a series, this module plus the comparison chart is a strong pairing — the images sell the world, the chart handles reading order.

Non-fiction: three real interior spreads. Photograph or export actual pages — a worksheet, a diagram, a filled-in example. Nothing else on a book page converts like showing the inside. Authors resist this because the interior “isn’t designed enough to show”. If that is true, the fix is the interior, not the A+ panel. (That is also why our formatting service starts at £69 — a page that photographs well is a page that sells.)

Amazon’s KDP help page gives the specification for this module directly: images accepted from 300 x 300 px, “recommended 600 x 600 px”, maximum 3 MB each. Amazon’s seller-facing module template document adds that a module-level headline plus all three panel headlines are required, along with two of the three body blocks, so this is not a module you can half-fill.

The voice: Standard Single Left Image / Single Right Image

Headline, body text, image to the side. Amazon’s KDP page gives the spec: “600 x 180 px is the smallest image accepted. To get the highest resolution, consider saving your picture at 600 x 600 px.”

This is the best module on the platform for an extract, and extracts are badly underused.

For a novel, that means the first 120 words of chapter one, set as body text, with an author photograph or a single evocative image alongside. Not a summary of the opening — the actual opening. A reader who reads 120 words of your prose and keeps going has effectively already bought; a reader who reads a summary has learned nothing about whether they like your sentences. The non-fiction version is the same trick pointed at a different asset: one worked example, or a framework in three steps, sitting next to your author photograph. If your authority is the reason people buy, that photograph belongs here where it has text around it, rather than floating alone in a logo module.

The non-fiction slot two: Standard Single Image & Highlights

This is the module most authors skip, and for a practical book it is the one that does the qualifying — it tells a browser whether the book is for them before they invest any more attention.

Amazon’s own seller-facing module template document sets out the fields, and the field list is the argument for using it. One image at 300 x 300 px is required. The main headline, subheadline and body are optional. Then two subheadline-and-body pairs are required, and so is a further headline with a bullet list under it. In other words, the module forces you to write three short blocks plus a list. That is precisely the shape of “who this is for / what is wrong now / what changes / what is inside”.

Fill it like this:

• Main headline and body: who the book is for, stated as a person rather than a category. “For tradespeople who quote by instinct and lose money on the jobs they win” beats “For small business owners.”
• Subheadline 2 and body 2: the problem in the reader’s own words, not yours.
• Subheadline 3 and body 3: what is different after they have read it.
• Headline 2 and bullets: four to six outcomes, each starting with a verb. “Price a job in under ten minutes.” “Write a quote that survives a haggle.”

Keep each body block to 40–60 words. The module renders as a dense column on a phone, and long paragraphs are where it falls apart. The mistake we correct most often here is a bullet list of attributes instead of outcomes — “220 pages”, “14 templates”, “fully indexed”. Nobody has ever bought a book because it had an index.

For fiction, leave it. The required three-block structure has nothing a novel can honestly fill, and half-filled required fields read as a page nobody finished.

The series engine: Comparison Chart

Amazon’s KDP help page states you can add “up to five ASINs for comparison” and that you can “add multiple comparison charts to one detail page”. Amazon’s module template document lists the chart’s fields as “ASIN (1-6)” and “Add Image - 150x300 (1-6)”, so the underlying structure carries six columns while KDP’s own guidance for books says five. Build to five. Minimum image size for the chart thumbnails is 150 x 300 px.

Read the guidelines before you get excited: KDP prohibits competitor comparisons, with one exception — other books in your own KDP account. So this is not a “why my book beats theirs” module. It is a backlist module, and for authors with three or more titles it is often the highest-earning panel on the page, because it converts a single-book buyer into a series buyer at the moment of highest intent.

Rows that work: reading order, standalone or sequel, page count, format available, “start here if you liked…”. Rows that waste space: publication year, ISBN, publisher.

If this is your only book, the chart is not for you yet, and this is the one instruction in this article I would ask you to take literally. A one-column comparison chart does not read as a short layout — it reads as a broken one, as though the listing was abandoned halfway through. Cut it, run four modules instead of five, and add it when book two lands. Everywhere else in this article that a stack includes a comparison chart, that stack is assuming a backlist.

The chapter list in disguise: Standard Technical Specifications

Amazon’s KDP page says this table takes “up to 16 rows”, and the module template document sets the floor as well as the ceiling — “Spec Name (Min 4/ Max 16)”. The module exists so people can list voltage and dimensions. For non-fiction it is the cleanest way on the platform to show a table of contents, and a table of contents is a genuinely strong sales asset for a practical book — it is the thing a browser in a bookshop flicks to.

Sixteen rows: chapter number in the left column, the promise of the chapter in the right. Not the chapter title. “Chapter 4” / “How to price a job when the client won’t share a budget” sells; “Chapter 4” / “Pricing” does not.

For fiction, skip it. Nobody buys a novel off a contents page.

The closing slot: Standard Text or Standard Company Logo

Slot five is small, and it should be. It is where you say the quiet thing after the selling is done.

The text module is the simpler of the two — Amazon’s template document lists it as “Standard: All Text” with an optional headline and optional body, and no image at all. That makes it the only module you can fill with nothing but words, which is exactly what an author note needs.

Write 60–100 words. For fiction, that is why you wrote the book, what it cost you, and what is coming next — in your own voice, first person, no third-person marketing register. “I wrote this in the eighteen months after my father stopped recognising me” earns a slot. “A gripping tale of loss and redemption” does not; the blurb already said that, better, further up the page.

For non-fiction, use it for what happens after the last page: a named community, a further reading list inside the book, the fact that the templates are reproducible. Not a link — KDP’s guidelines prohibit “web links or language attempting to redirect to other sites inside or outside of Amazon”, and this is the slot where authors most often get caught trying.

The company logo module is the alternative, and it has one hard limit worth knowing before you plan around it. KDP states: “You can include the Standard Company Logo module one time per project and it’s smaller than the other modules.” That size difference is the point — it is a signature, not a statement. Use it only if you publish under a real imprint that a reader might recognise or that carries other titles. A logo you made in Canva last week for a one-book imprint spends a slot to tell the reader nothing, and most of the time the text module is the better trade.

Two five-module stacks that work

Rather than leave you to assemble it, here are the two layouts we build most often.

Both stacks assume more than one title. If this is your only book, drop the comparison chart for the reason set out above and run four modules. A short, dense layout beats a long one with filler in it, and Amazon does not reward you for using all five.

The image dimensions that actually matter

Most published dimension lists for A+ modules are copied between blogs and drift. The figures below are the ones stated on Amazon’s own KDP A+ Content Examples page, the A+ Content Guidelines and Amazon’s seller-facing A+ Content Standard Modules template document, quoted directly.

Amazon’s own two pages disagree on file size. The A+ Content Guidelines say individual files must stay “under 2 MB”. The A+ Content Examples page states a 3 MB maximum on several individual modules. Build to 2 MB and the conflict never affects you. A 970px-wide JPEG at quality 80 lands around 200–400 KB, so this is not a constraint you should ever hit unless you are uploading straight out of a camera.

The recommended sizes tell you the real column width. The overlay module wants 1940 x 600 px but accepts 970 x 300 px. That two-to-one relationship is the giveaway: the A+ content column renders at roughly 970 CSS pixels, and Amazon wants double that so the image stays sharp on high-density screens. The working rule is straightforward — design at the 970px width, export at exactly twice every stated minimum, and your panels will look sharp on a phone and on a 5K monitor. This is the difference between A+ Content that looks professional and A+ Content that looks slightly soft, and it costs nothing.

Ignore dpi entirely. The guidelines say “at least 72 dpi”, while Amazon’s own A+ Content Examples page lists 300 DPI against every module. Neither number means anything for a screen image; only the pixel dimensions matter. If a designer asks you what dpi to export A+ panels at, that is a small signal they have not done this before.

What Amazon will reject, and the book-specific traps

Amazon’s A+ Content Guidelines list the top rejection reasons, and several of them catch authors specifically. Content is reviewed before it goes live — KDP states that “All content in compliance with our A+ Content Guidelines will appear on your detail page within eight business days”, so a rejection is not a two-minute fix, it is a fortnight lost.

The traps that catch authors:

Customer reviews are prohibited. You cannot quote Amazon reviews, Goodreads reviews or reader feedback in A+ Content. This is the single most common rejection we see on book projects, because a reader quote is the most natural thing in the world for an author to want on the page. Reader reviews go on your Author Central editorial reviews instead, which is a different surface.

Quotes are capped at four, and gated by source. KDP’s page states that no quotes or attributions to individuals, customers or other private figures may be made in A+ Content, with a maximum of four quotes or endorsements permitted, only from well-known publications or public figures, and with the source attributed. A blurb from a bestselling author is fine with attribution. A blurb from a beta reader is not.

Time-sensitive language. The guidelines specifically flag “Time-sensitive information such as now, new, latest, yet, on sale now”. “New from the author of…” will be rejected. Write the panel as though it will still be live in three years, because it will be.

No pricing, no promotions, no purchase directives. No “£9.99”, no “buy now”, no “add to cart”, no free-book offers.

No competitor comparisons except other books in your own KDP account. This closes off the “how mine compares to the market leader” panel that works so well in physical products.

No Kindle Unlimited references, no shipping or guarantee information, no QR codes, no contact details, no external links.

There is also a house-style rule most people miss: the guidelines instruct you to “Spell out all numbers under 10, use consistent punctuation and serial (oxford) commas, and capitalize each major word in a header”. Rejections on this are rare, but it is a free win to comply.

If you want a pre-flight check on the whole listing rather than just the A+ panels, our free KDP readiness audit covers metadata, categories and listing hygiene alongside it.

Does any of this actually sell more books?

You will find “A+ Content increases sales by 20%” repeated across dozens of articles. Almost none of them cite a source, and the ones that do are usually citing each other.

Here is what Amazon itself says, on its own public selling page: “Basic A+ Content can increase sales by up to 8%—and well-implemented Premium A+ Content can increase sales by up to 20%.”

Read that carefully before you plan a launch around it. It is Amazon’s own marketing copy for a feature Amazon wants you to use, it is undated, it says “up to” rather than “on average”, and it aggregates across every category on the platform — overwhelmingly physical products with high consideration and multiple variants, not books. It is a real primary source and worth quoting, but it is not evidence that A+ Content will lift your book by 8%. I have not been able to find a named, dated, book-specific study from a primary source, and I would treat anyone quoting one to you with some scepticism until you have seen it.

There is a second claim circulating heavily in 2026 — that Amazon’s AI shopping assistant reads A+ Content in full and that A+ text therefore now feeds AI-driven product discovery, even though A+ body text has never been indexed for conventional Amazon keyword search. It is plausible, it is repeated widely, and I could not find it stated on any Amazon-published page. Build your A+ Content as though a human is reading it. If the AI claim turns out to be right, clear well-structured text benefits you anyway; if it is wrong, you have lost nothing.

What I will say from building these for a living: the measurable effect is not evenly distributed. For a single-title fiction debut with no backlist, A+ Content is a modest polish item. For a non-fiction author whose buyer needs to see the inside before committing, and for any author with three or more books who can put a comparison chart on the page, it is one of the highest-leverage things you can do to a listing — because it changes the size of the order, not just the probability of one.

Premium A+ — mostly not available to you, and that is fine

Premium A+ adds video, image carousels, interactive hotspots and Q&A modules. Amazon’s public seller page describes it as letting you add “larger images, videos, interactive hotspots that allow customers to hone in on product features, clickable image or video carousels, Q&A modules, and shoppable content.”

Amazon’s stated eligibility requirements are a Brand Story module published on all of your brand-owned product listings, plus five approved A+ Content modules in the last twelve months. The Brand Story module is a Brand Registry feature, which requires a registered trade mark. Most KDP authors do not have one, do not need one, and should not buy one to unlock a content format.

The cost is not trivial either. The UK Intellectual Property Office’s own trade mark forms and fees page puts an online application in one class at £205, with £60 for each additional class, following the increase that took effect on 1 April 2026 — the first rise in nearly three decades, up from £170. That is roughly $270, indicative at current rates, and it is before any attorney fees.

Check your own A+ Content Manager rather than taking my word for it — Amazon reviews eligibility periodically and the criteria have moved before (the approved-module threshold is widely reported to have dropped from fifteen to five in 2024, though Amazon does not publish that history). But plan on Basic A+ being what you have, and note that Basic A+ done well beats Premium A+ done lazily by a wide margin.

When to do this yourself

Do it yourself if: you have one book, you are comfortable in Canva or Affinity, and you can export five images at exact pixel dimensions without stretching them. The tool is free, Amazon’s review is free, and a competent DIY layout using the modules above will outperform a professional layout built on the wrong ones. Set aside an afternoon, read the guidelines page in full before you design anything, and photograph your actual interior pages.

Do not do it yourself if: you cannot get a legible headline over a photograph on a 390px-wide phone screen. That one skill is most of the difference between A+ Content that works and A+ Content that reads as amateur, and it is the failure we see most often in DIY panels — not bad taste, just text that vanishes on mobile.

If you would rather not: our A+ Content design is £89 for three panels, turned around in two to three days, or £149 for a five-panel layout. If you have a backlist, the multi-book packs work out at roughly £116 a book for three, £100 for five and £80 for ten, because the design system gets built once and the comparison charts share a spine. Either way, the guidance above is the same guidance we work to, so you lose nothing by taking it and building it yourself.

Related guides

• Amazon A+ Content for KDP: How to Set It Up
• Book Launch Checklist
• KDP Keyword Research
• Amazon Ads for Authors
• How to Format a Book for KDP

Frequently asked questions

How many A+ Content modules can you use on one book?

Five. KDP’s A+ Content Examples help page states that “you can choose between 17 modules to design your detail page layout. You can use up to five modules per detail page layout.” One of those modules has a further limit: KDP states that “You can include the Standard Company Logo module one time per project and it’s smaller than the other modules.” Using fewer than five is often better than padding the layout with weak panels.

Which A+ module is best for a novel?

Standard Image & Text Overlay as the opening panel, because it is the only module that gives you a full-width image with text floating over it, and it is the one chance to establish the book’s world at scale. Follow it with a Single Side Image module carrying the actual first 120 words of chapter one. Avoid Standard Product Description Text — it duplicates the book description that already sits above your A+ Content.

Which A+ modules should a non-fiction book use?

Image & Text Overlay, Single Image & Highlights, Three Images and Text, Technical Specifications and Comparison Chart, in that order. The overlay states the outcome and your credential; Single Image & Highlights qualifies the reader with a required structure of three text blocks plus a bullet list of outcomes; Three Images and Text shows three real interior spreads; Technical Specifications takes up to 16 rows and becomes a contents table with chapter promises rather than chapter titles. If you have no other titles, drop the comparison chart and run four modules.

What image size should A+ Content images be?

Design at 970px column width and export at double every module’s stated minimum. The Image & Text Overlay module accepts a minimum of 970 x 300 px and Amazon recommends 1940 x 600 px; Three Images and Text accepts from 300 x 300 px and recommends 600 x 600 px; Single Left Image accepts from 600 x 180 px and recommends 600 x 600 px; the comparison chart thumbnails start at 150 x 300 px. Files must be JPG or PNG in RGB, and Amazon’s A+ Content Guidelines state individual files must remain under 2 MB.

Can you put reader reviews in A+ Content?

No. Customer reviews are one of the top reasons A+ Content is rejected, and KDP’s guidelines direct you to use Author Central for editorial reviews instead. You may include a maximum of four quotes or endorsements, and only from well-known publications or public figures with the source attributed — quotes from private individuals, customers or beta readers are prohibited.

Can you use the comparison chart to compare your book to a competitor’s?

No. KDP’s A+ Content Guidelines prohibit competitor comparisons, with one exception: other books in your own KDP account. The comparison chart is therefore a backlist and series tool rather than a competitive one. KDP states you can include up to five ASINs per chart and use multiple charts in a project.

How long does Amazon take to approve A+ Content?

KDP states that “All content in compliance with our A+ Content Guidelines will appear on your detail page within eight business days”, and notes that higher submission volumes can extend that. Plan A+ Content submission at least two weeks before any date you are marketing towards, because a rejection restarts the clock.