Book Advertising Guidelines and Acceptance Policies

These policies apply to Book ads campaigns in Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display. All advertising content must be appropriate for a general audience. As the advertiser, it is your responsibility to comply with all applicable laws, rules, and regulations that apply to your ads and any location where the ads appear. This includes obtaining any required authorizations or approvals from local regulatory authorities for the sale, distribution, or advertisement of the books that you intend to advertise with Amazon or include in your ads.

As the advertiser, you must comply with our Ad Policies for the ad campaigns that you run with Amazon. If your ads do not comply with our Ad Policies, your campaigns may be rejected until you fix the policy violation. Amazon may suspend or terminate your ad account(s) for severe or repeated Ad Policy violations.

These Book Ads policies apply in all locales, unless we indicate otherwise, and are in addition to our Amazon Ads Guidelines and Acceptance Policies. Separate non-Book Ad Policies apply to sponsored ads, Posts, and Stores. For technical requirements, please review the ad specs.

We periodically update our policies. Please check this page often to ensure that you are always up to date on our latest policy requirements.

Please ensure that your ad format complies with our sponsored ads guidelines.

The following content requirements apply to all elements of your ads.

Your ads must:

• Accurately reflect the content of the landing page.
• Be suitable for a general audience.
• Be in the primary language of the Amazon site on which the ad is displayed.
• Be clear and accurate so that customers receive correct information before engaging with an ad or deciding to purchase a book.
• Only promote books that you either own or are authorized to resell or distribute.

Sponsored Brands requires authors and publishers to advertise a minimum of three unique titles. If you do not have three unique titles and wish to advertise different formats of the same title, you should consider creating Sponsored Products or Sponsored Display ads.

Some book ad formats require an author profile picture or publisher logo so that customers can identify you as the advertiser.

Your author profile picture or publisher logo must be legible and must not contain:

• Additional text other than your author or publisher name or initials, or series title.
• Full or partial book covers.
• Letter or pillar box formats.
• Poor cropping.

Author profile pictures should be your author image or likeness, your author name or initials, series title or a relevant representative image from the books advertised.

Examples of acceptable author profile pictures and publisher logos:

If you make a claim in your ad copy, that claim must not be contradicted in the product detail page.

Claims, awards, or accolades must be substantiated on the product detail page or in the ad with the source and date of the designation. For example, a claim such as “Best Seller in the US” in the headline would require “Best Seller in the US, NY Times, March 2020” on the product detail page or in the ad and must be no older than 18 months.

• Examples of claims, awards, or accolades that require substantiation include bestselling books, bestselling series, bestselling author, award-winning book, and award-winning author.
• Claims, awards or accolades must not be presented in a misleading way. For example, ads must not claim “This year’s best book”…if the award was given last year.
• Amazon does not require additional substantiation for claims that are present on the book cover or subjective claims that relate to an opinion, or that cannot be objectively proven. For example, “You’ll love XXX,” or “You will feel energized after reading this book.”

If your ad refers to another title, it cannot state or imply that your book is superior to the other book, author or its central character (for example, we would not approve “more suspenseful than [Other Book Title]”).

Custom images allow you to include compelling images that represent your book or brand in context or a lifestyle setting in your ad. Images must not contradict the landing page and must be of high resolution and quality and aesthetically pleasing. Images must not:

• Be individual or multiple book covers on a solid or transparent background.
• Be an individual author profile picture or publisher logo or combination of logos.
• Be one of your selected book images.
• Contain duplicate images.
• Contain crowded, excessive, poorly cropped or illegible elements.
• Contain additional text other than text naturally present in the image.
• Contain letterbox or pillarbox formats.

• Customer reviews must be suitable for all audiences.
• Multiple customer reviews cannot be combined into a single review.

The language of the ad must match the language of the main Amazon site where the ad will display.

If the book title or content is in a foreign language the following conditions apply:

• The book title in the ad and product detail page must include a language disclaimer, such as “The Book I Wrote (French Edition)” or “Un Deux Trois (French Edition)”.
• Customizable headline or custom text, where applicable, must be in the language of the main Amazon site where the ad will display.
• Where possible, a local language translation of the book title should be in the book title, headline, or custom text.

If your headline or custom text contains a promotion for a specific single day holiday event such as Halloween, Valentine’s Day (such as “A Great Book for your valentines?”), then the dates for those campaigns must start within 8 weeks leading up to the event and must end within 24 hours after the event date, or a reasonable time after that, depending on the event.

For multi-day seasonal events such as Christmas, please ensure the campaign ends within a reasonable timeframe after the event, such as 7 days.

If you extend the campaign after the seasonal event ends, you must modify your headline or custom text by removing the messaging that no longer applies.

All books advertised must be appropriate for a general audience, conform to Amazon Ads Guidelines and Acceptance Policies, and comply with all laws, rules, and regulations that apply to the advertiser, the advertising content, and any location where the advertisements may appear.

Amazon permits ads for books in most categories provided they comply with the content restrictions outlined in this policy. To help provide a welcoming experience to all customers we place additional restrictions on the categories listed in this section.

The policies in this section cover books whose content is related to drugs, drug abuse, and drug-related activities.

Ads must not:

• Contain images of illicit or recreational drugs or images of drug use.
• Make claims to cure drug addictions.
• Promote or glorify the consumption or use of illegal or recreational drugs and related paraphernalia.
• Promote or glorify the abuse of legal or prescription drugs.
• Promote the drug trade.
• Provide guidance on the preparation and/or consumption of illegal or recreational drugs and related paraphernalia.

The policies in this section cover non-fiction gambling books such as gambling tutorials or tips and tricks on how to gamble.

The policies in this section cover books related to elections, politicians, or that have politics as a central theme.

The policies in this section cover books that have religious content.

Ads for Romance books may only feature minimal provocative content. Ads must not contain nudity, overt sexuality, clearly prurient content, or sensitive words and titles.

• Please see section 6.5 Sexually suggestive content below for image guidelines.

The policies in this section cover books whose content is sensitive or personal in nature. The following book categories are prohibited on Sponsored Display (Audiences).

Ads must not speak directly to customers, such as “Are you overweight?”, nor make any unrealistic or excessive claims, including, but not limited to:

• That customers can lose weight by merely reading the book and without following a calorie-controlled diet or exercise program.
• That results are effective for everyone, or that they are permanent.
• Weight loss of a specific amount over a defined period of time.
• Substantial weight loss no matter what or how much the customer eats.

Ads must not target or appeal to children through messaging, imagery, or other targeting.

The keywords or products targeted in your Ads must be relevant to the product being promoted. Ads must not target keywords or products that could result in an offensive, insensitive, or undesirable shopper experience

For instance:

• Books whose content is sensitive or personal in nature, such as weight loss, medical, religion and self-help can only use keyword or product targeting directly related to the book promoted.

In addition to the requirements above, the following content guidelines apply to the image and video content in your ads.

6.1 Image quality

• If the image contains a border, the border must be evenly distributed.
• Images must be high quality, professional, and visually appealing.
• The image must be a 2-dimensional representation of the book promoted.
• There can only be minimal text on the image.

Video asset requirements
Please ensure your video complies with the following guidelines:

• Letterbox or pillarbox formats: Videos must not have bars on any side of the video content.
• We do not permit blank or black frames at the start or end of videos.

Content guidelines
Videos must be suitable for general audiences and include your author name or image, publisher logo, or book that clearly represents the author, publisher or book promoted. Videos must comply with our policies.

Sponsored Brand Video ads autoplay and launch on mute, with customer-initiated on click audio, therefore we recommend videos that can easily be understood and are still engaging without sound.

Videos without audio tracks are acceptable, however:

• It must be clear to the customer that the video has no audio (for example, the ad has a disclaimer that reads “no audio” or there are no characters that appear to be speaking).
• Customers must be able to understand the video without audio.

Captions or subtitles are strongly recommended.

Audio and any text within the video must be in the primary language of the locale in which they are displayed.

Video format and quality
To ensure a good customer experience the videos in your ad must not contain:

• Blurry, unclear, or unrecognizable visuals.
• Creative elements that interfere with legibility of ad templates, for example, the Sponsored tag or mute button. Please review our Video Safe Zone templates for more information.
• Customer reviews (including star ratings) even if these reviews are on Amazon.
• Deals, discounts, or other savings promotions.
• Distracting images (for example, flashing, spinning, blinking, pulsating objects or text, or high-contrast transitions).
• Distracting, shrill, unexpected or violent, and jarring sounds. This can include sudden changes in volume, uncommonly high-pitched voices, or unexpected or contextually irrelevant sounds.
• Illegible text.
• Poor audio quality such as static, crackling, faint messages or low tone voices, fast paced, inaudible, unclear, or unrecognizable sounds.
• Poor video quality and low resolution.
• Pressuring, combative, or urgent language intended to elicit a click or a sale from the customer.

Book covers, image and videos cannot display the use of alcohol, tobacco, drugs, or drug paraphernalia.

Ads should not encourage or glorify the use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs.

Weapons include firearms, swords, cross bows and other inherently violent objects.

Ads may feature images of military equipment and vehicles (tanks, warplanes, helicopters, etc.).

Weapons (including realistic and non-realistic firearms, swords, bows and arrows, etc.) must not be shown:

• Directed out toward the customer.
• Handled by or associated with a minor.
• In a gruesome way (for example, covered in blood).
• In a violent, threatening manner, for example in the process of injuring another character.
• Pointed at a character.

The policies in this section apply to both human and cartoon imagery.

The following are prohibited in all ads:

• Ads that draw undue attention to body parts, such as breasts or buttocks.
• Depictions of minors in sexual situations.
• Fully visible intimate body parts such as genitals, female breasts, and buttocks.
• Ads may feature semi-revealing attire (models showing bare skin without revealing any intimate parts or showing contours or simulation of sensitive areas) if modest and relevant to the product or service promoted. For example, an image of a woman in a bikini may be used to promote bikinis, but the same image cannot be used to promote a car because a woman in a bikini is not relevant to a vehicle.
• Images of suggestive undressing, such as pulling down a bra strap or underwear.
• Models in sexual lingerie such as stockings, suspenders or paraphernalia such as whips and chains.
• Provocative embraces or embraces in a provocative setting such as in a shower or on a bed.
• Sexually suggestive poses emulating a sexual position or alluding to sexual activity, whether clothed or unclothed such as the parting of the legs or the accentuation of the hip, along with amorous or sexually passionate facial expressions.
• Sexual innuendo in text, image, or video.

Examples of acceptable and unacceptable book covers