Creating an A+ Content project — from blank canvas to published modules.

Two prerequisites before opening a single A+ project: the brand is enrolled in Brand Registry, and the module stack for the listing is already drafted on paper. Composing A+ live inside Seller Central's editor — picking modules as you go — is the single biggest time-sink on the surface and the most common cause of a moderation rejection on the first pass. Decide the stack first; the editor is just the place you assemble it.

Opening the project

The path in Seller Central: Advertising → A+ Content Manager → Start creating A+ content. Pick the project type:

• Basic — Standard module library. Available on all Brand Registry ASINs.
• Premium (A+ Premium / A++) — extended module library with full-width modules, hover-zoom comparison, interactive carousel and video. Eligibility flag is checked at project creation; if greyed out, the brand hasn't yet hit the A+ Premium threshold (covered in Episode 14).
• Brand Story — a separate project type that doesn't replace the description; it renders as a carousel above the A+ block on every ASIN it's mapped to. Covered in Episode 15.

On project creation, name the project with a convention you can search on later — brand, marketplace, project intent. brand-de- coffee-grinder-family beats A+ Project 47 when you're maintaining 200 projects.

Drafting the module stack

With the project open, the editor renders a vertical canvas. The flow is:

1. Add Module opens the picker with every available module type. Pick the first module from the draft stack.
2. Fill in the module's text fields and upload its image(s). Each module shows its character limits and image dimensions inline.
3. Repeat for each module in the draft stack. The canvas allows up to seven modules per project (Basic or Premium).
4. Reorder modules with the up/down arrows. The order on the canvas is the order the shopper sees.

Two pitfalls in this step:

• The seven-module budget is hard. Adding an eighth slot is not allowed; the editor disables "Add Module." Cut on paper before discovering this in the editor.
• Module changes are destructive. Swapping a Standard Image & Text for a Standard Four Image Quadrant does not migrate the text and image you already entered — they are discarded. Decide the module type before filling it in.

Image specs that survive moderation

Each module type declares its required image dimensions inline; failing the spec is one of the most common rejection reasons. The recurring rules:

• JPG or PNG, RGB, sRGB colour space. CMYK uploads are rejected.
• ≤ 5 MB per image on most modules; some Premium modules go higher.
• Exact pixel dimensions per module type — a Standard Image Header is 970×600, a Standard Single Image & Highlights is 300×300, a Comparison Chart thumbnail is 150×300, etc. Uploading at the wrong ratio either rejects the upload or letterboxes the image.
• No text on the main image of a Standard module in many categories. Moderation reads the image with OCR and rejects text overlays beyond a minimal benefit label or a small logo. Premium modules have looser rules but still cap text density.
• No promotional callouts("Sale", "Best Seller", price, star ratings, shipping promises, guarantees). Even on allowed-text modules, those banners reject.
• No competitor logos, brand marks the brand doesn't own, or copyrighted characters. Hard rejection.

Alt-text — the only indexed surface inside A+

Every image upload exposes an alt-text field. Filling it matters for two reasons:

• Accessibility — screen readers read alt-text aloud, and Amazon requires it for compliance in several marketplaces.
• Indexing — in most categories, A+ alt-text contributes to organic search indexing alongside the backend search-terms field. This is the only slot inside the A+ surface that feeds search; every other piece of body copy inside A+ does not.

The clean rule: write alt-text that describes the image for a blind shopper and that naturally contains the synonyms the foundation sheet earmarked for A+. Keyword stuffing in alt-text gets flagged by moderation; a one-sentence description that happens to use the right synonyms is the target.

Language and ASIN mapping

On the Apply ASINs step the project is bound to:

• One language, set at project creation. The project will only show on marketplaces using that language. A project authored in DE renders on Amazon.de; the same project does not render on Amazon.com.
• One or many ASINs, picked from the brand's catalogue. The editor's bulk-add via SKU or ASIN list is the only sane path for a family of 20+ ASINs; clicking each in the UI is a typing exercise.

Multi-language brands run the same project in each marketplace's language as a separate project — there is no auto-translate. The common pattern: build the master project in one language, duplicate to a fresh project, replace every text field with the translated copy, re-upload localised images where text appears in-image, re-map ASINs to the new marketplace's catalogue.

Submission and the moderation pass

On Submit for approval, the project moves to moderation. Status indicators:

• Draft — editable, not in moderation, not live.
• Submitted — moderation queue. Not editable until the pass returns.
• Approved & Published — live on every mapped ASIN that survived the eligibility check (in stock, Buy-Box-eligible, brand-owned).
• Rejected — moderation returned a reason code. The project goes back to Draft and lists the failed rule(s) in the editor.

The standard rejection reasons, in rough descending frequency:

• Text on image beyond the allowed minimum.
• Banned phrases — superlatives ("best", "#1"), medical claims, price callouts, warranty promises, contact information, urls.
• Trademark / IP — competitor mentions, characters / brands the brand doesn't own, logos in the wrong scope.
• Image quality — low resolution, wrong aspect ratio, watermarks, stock-photo signatures.
• Duplicate content across modules — the same paragraph copy-pasted across two modules. Moderation flags it as padding.

A rejection points at one rule. Fix the rule, resubmit. Resubmissions are usually faster than the first pass — 24–48 hours rather than the initial up-to-7-day window.

Versioning and the rebuild trap

Edits to a live project produce a new version that goes through moderation again. While the new version is pending, the previously approved version stays live. Two operational consequences:

• Never delete an approved project to "rebuild from scratch" — the deletion immediately removes the live A+ from every mapped ASIN, and the new project takes another full moderation cycle to render. Edit in place via "Edit" → submit a new version instead.
• Batch edits. Each edit cycle burns one moderation pass per project. A five-edit session on a project is one moderation pass; five sessions of one edit each is five.

What this episode hands off

With the A+ Basic project published and live, the next episode steps up to the Premium tier: what A+ Premium actually unlocks beyond the Basic library, the eligibility threshold and the cost / benefit calculation that decides whether to spend the extra build time on a given ASIN.