Amazon is now accepting promotional images, and our marketing team is using these images in featured placements to highlight apps to customers. Promotional artwork gives you an opportunity to capture the attention of customers using colorful imagery that reflects the essence of your apps. At Amazon, we are constantly looking for new ways for you to grow your business by connecting you with new customers. We’ll be expanding our use of these images, and we encourage you to submit your promotional image now to take advantage of these new marketing opportunities.

When creating your image, we recommend that you strive for an engaging image that speaks to what your app is all about. Make your image colorful to catch the eye of customers, and choose imagery that promotes the essence of your app and brand. Text on your promotional image should be large, simple, and readable. Do not add the price to the image ($0.99) or any discount call outs (50% off).

Steps to Upload Promotional Imagery

1. Create or use an existing promotional image that is 1024 x 500 pixels.The images file should be in PNG or JPG format. 

2. From the Distribution Portal, navigate to the My Apps tab. Select the app you'd like to edit and navigate to the Images & Multimedia tab for that app. Then, click the Edit button.

3) Select Upload Image from the Promotional Imagefield. Choose the image you’d like to upload, and then save the image. Images must be 1024 x 500 in PNG or JPG format.

Since the official launch of the Amazon Developer Portal, we have received tons of positive feedback regarding the developer registration and app submission process.  However, with the large volume of activity, it’s not surprising that developers have a few questions that are not directly answered in our FAQ.  We’ll take this opportunity to answer some of those questions:

Are you required to submit a video along with other multimedia content, such as icons and screenshots?

Although compelling videos can be helpful to customers when they are deciding on which app to buy, they are not required. 

The only multimedia files that are required are:

• Device icon (114x114px)
• Large icon (512x512px)
• A minimum of three screenshots (480x854px or 854x480px each)

The maximum size for each image is 3Mb.  More information about multimedia files can be found here. If you have submitted your app and see the status “Incomplete (Missing Multimedia)”, then it is likely that you did not submit one or more of the required images.  If you believe you have submitted all multimedia files and are still seeing this status, we encourage you to contact our support team.

What is the maximum video size that you can upload for an app? 

The maximum size for a video is 30Mb.  There is a 3Mb limit for video files submitted through the Developer Portal’s web console.  If you want to submit a video that is greater than 3Mb (but under 30Mb), please use your FTP account.  The process to create an FTP account and submit your app video is described here. 

What video formats do you support?  Your FAQ says MP4 H.264- so does this mean you don’t accept any other format?

We require your videos to be stored in an MP4 H.264 encoded format.  This is to ensure an optimal visual and performance experience for your customers.  Remember that these videos will not only be viewed on Amazon’s retail website, but also on mobile devices.  If you upload videos that do not meet the requirements outlined in our FAQ, there may be a delay in your submission review, or your video may not be included on your final detail page.

If you have any additional questions as you go through the Amazon Appstore submission process, please do not hesitate to contact our support team.

You’ve taken the first step in submitting an app to the Amazon Appstore – you’ve created a compelling app or game for Android!  Either that or you’re reading this post to learn more about what’s to come in the store itself – we understand, it’s exciting.  Regardless – if you’re an app developer or you’re just plain old curious, we’ll bottom line the submission process for you.  It’s straight forward – you did the hard work and we want to make submitting to the store easy.

There are three steps to getting your app into the Amazon Appstore for Android: create an account, submit your app, and make your app available.

The first step is creating an account.  This is the easy part – you can create an account directly on the Amazon Appstore Developer Portal.  For a limited time, we’re waiving the $99 program fee to make getting started even easier (or at least cheaper … free) . It’s free to register for a developer account. Go to the Amazon Appstore Developer Portal to create your account. 

You’ll be asked for the following information:

• Profile Information: this is the information we’ll associate with your account and use to talk about you, the developer; in the Profile Information section is a “Developer Info” field – this is public facing and should be a short blurb about who you are
• Acceptance of our agreement (you can also print and save the agreement from the Portal)
• Payment Information: this is what we need to be able to pay you based on app sales

After setting up your account, you’ll need to submit your apk file as well as marketing materials that complement your app.  Marketing materials include details about your app, images, and video.

We will ask for the following details about your app:

• Application Information: The application title, category, and description will help with the marketing of your app and may show up on product detail pages.  If there are keywords you think will help with the discoverability of your app, include them!  Do make sure the keywords are relevant, though (don’t put multi-player if it’s truly a single player app).
• Product Availability Schedule: This information lets us know the earliest we can display an application in the store as well as when/if we need to pull the application down. 
• Application Support: The contact that Amazon should work with to troubleshoot any problems with the application.  This information will not be listed with your app.
• Content Maturity: When you post your app, you will select different content ratings as applicable.  We’ll also check these when we’re testing the app.  Some developers have ESRB ratings for their app – if you have one, include it!  That too will help with the marketing of your app.

You can find out more about what’s specifically required for images and video online here.   It’s important that the images and video you submit are yours (you have the rights to use these images and video) and that they’re reflective of the app itself.  An image with some upset birds for a finance app that helps with taxes wouldn’t do anyone any good.

That’s it – after you open up your account and submit your assets you’re app and details will be in review.  You can track the approval status of your app at any time by logging into the Developer Portal and finding your app in the “Dashboard” on the portal home page.