Want to crack the Amazon code for more book sales? New book explains how

Not selling enough books? You need to crack the Amazon code for more book sales. Penny Sansevieri's latest book does that for you.

Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Associates links, which means if you click on them and make a purchase, I will receive a couple of pennies (at no extra charge to you).

I wish I had read Penny Sansevieri’s latest book when she sent a review copy last year.

The Amazon Author Formula: Insider Tips, Tricks, and Strategies for Selling More Books is excellent, so I feel bad about not sharing that insight sooner.

Buy it now.

What? You want reasons to buy it? Read on.

Penny Sansevieri is an Amazon expert

The founder and CEO of book publicity firm Author Marketing Experts, Inc., Penny has worked with her team to create some of the most innovative and effective book marketing strategies in the industry.

In addition to working collaboratively with her publisher and author clients to implement time-tested tactics, Penny innovates, tests, tweaks, and tests again to determine if the new approach makes a difference.

She draws on her hands-on experience working closely with authors for much of what she teaches in The Amazon Author Formula.

Crack the Amazon code for more book sales

You might think you’ve got the whole Amazon thing mastered, though, so you don’t need this book.

Maybe, maybe not.

But as Penny points out more than once, Amazon changes the rules more often than we’d like, so there’s always more to learn.

On the other hand, you might be so overwhelmed by everything you need to know about selling on Amazon that you’ve decided not to think about it at all.

Who can blame you?

Don’t avoid learning about Amazon

As understandable as that is, remaining ignorant of Amazon’s ways isn’t an option because it’s the most powerful book-selling platform in the world.

If you want people to discover, read, and love your book, they need to find it on Amazon by searching for the topic, not necessarily your name or the book’s title.

Penny helps you crack the Amazon code for more book sales. Take advantage of that.

As The Amazon Author Formula table of contents shows, the book covers everything from how Amazon’s algorithm works to keyword strings (and why you need to find and use them) to book descriptions and Amazon ads.

You might have seen some of it somewhere before (including on this blog), but I promise you there are gems and chunks and details that will make you think, “I didn’t realize that!”

A few gems from the book

With that in mind, here are just a few specifics that preview the book’s thorough content:

• Reader reviews are the equivalent of new blog posts. New blog content helps a site’s SEO by telling Google there’s activity on a website. New reviews tell Amazon’s search engine that there’s activity on your book’s page—a good thing for your Amazon “SEO.” So never stop pursuing reviews.
• Amazon has a long memory. If one of your older books didn’t sell well, Amazon remembers that and holds it against your newer works. This is similar to traditional publishing in general. If an earlier book didn’t sell well, it’s harder to get a contract for another book.
• You can help your novel show up in Amazon searches by adding a relevant subtitle that reveals more about the book. The Amazon Author Formula explains what to include in the subtitle.
• The “also bought” books that show up on the bottom of your page can mess with your rankings. Penny explains how to manipulate that situation.

Missing gem

One omission surprised me: Amazon A+ Content.

It’s a next-level way to make your book’s Amazon page more attractive and professional.

Both are important to any book, but especially one that’s self-published. You want to create a book that looks and reads like it’s traditionally published; quality Amazon A+ Content suggests that it is.

How to use this book

There’s a lot to absorb and act on in The Amazon Author Formula. How you take advantage of it depends on your learning style.

No matter how you approach it, I encourage you to read and act on all of it.

There’s a lot to learn, and with friendly, clear writing, Penny knows how to teach it.

Buy the book. You’ll be glad you did. (And remember to review it on Amazon and Goodreads!)

Update added January 2026: Penny Sansevieri has since created a companion workbook, The Amazon Author Formula Workbook: Hands-on Exercises and Expert Tactics to Dominate Amazon’s Marketplace. Read my review here.

Is there a book you’d like me to review here? Please provide the title in a comment.