(Click any of the screenshots in this article to enlarge them)
It’s a pet hate of mine when authors post book links and only include an Amazon US link. Yes, it’s the biggest market. I get that. But there are lots more of us all over the world who shop at Amazon and might want to buy your books – so make it easy for us – and yourself.
First step – sign up for BookLinker. Create your account, and when it’s all sorted and ready to go, carry on reading.
1. Navigate to your page on Amazon (it doesn’t matter whether it’s UK, US, CA or wherever…)
2. Select the entirety of the link in the address bar, and copy it (just like you’d copy and paste anything else)
3. Open a new tab/window, and navigate to Booklinker.net. Then go to the ‘create link’ page. Paste your link into the space provided, and hit ‘create universal link.’
4. You’ll then be prompted to select a prefix from the drop down menu on the left. Do that, selecting your preferred prefix. Then type your preferred suffix in the box next to it. When you’re happy, click ‘create link.’
5. That’s it! It really is as simple as that. You don’t have to worry too much about remembering the URL, because it’ll always be stored in your BookLinker account. All you have to do to access the menu is use that little blue box with the three white lines in the top-right hand corner.
6. Now go on… share your link with the world! People will click on it and automatically be directed to their local Amazon store. And the best part? Log back into BookLinker afterwards and you’ll be able to see statistics for where in the world people are when clicking your links. You’ll be surprised…
As well as for books, this also works for your Amazon author page. And, for those of you that are members of Amazon’s affiliate scheme, be sure and visit the ‘My Account’ page, scroll down and enter your affiliate tags to increase your earnings potential.
Happy Linking!
Lucy
Tag Archives: amazon
Getting Started with Amazon Author Central
Amazon Author Central is a great free tool to help you promote your books. Once it’s all configured and all your books are added, a link to ‘More About the Author’ will be included on each of your book pages. This means readers can easily find out what other books you’ve written/appeared in, more about you, see a link to your website, find out about upcoming events, and more.
Once it’s set up you just have to make sure it’s kept up to date, i.e. when you have new releases or arrange signings/events.
What many people don’t realise is you need SEPARATE accounts for the UK and US versions of Amazon. If you want to make the most of it, setting up just one account won’t do. It’s a nuisance, but you’ll have to do everything twice, and be aware that the two versions vary slightly.
Amazon Author Central UK: http://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk
Amazon Author Central US: http://authorcentral.amazon.com
Just sign up for free accounts on both sites and follow the instructions to set up your page.
Here’s an outline of what you can do:
- Add an author photo (and additional photos)
- Add your books (if you’re listed as the author, this should be straightforward. If, however, you’ve contributed to anthologies, you may find you’ll have to contact Amazon and have them manually add the book to your page.)
- Add a biography (make sure to update this accordingly)
- Add a blog RSS feed (a great way to get your blog in front of new people and encourage them to follow you – currently only on US version)
- List events
- Add videos (great if you have trailers for your books)
- Add your Twitter handle so people can see your latest Tweet and easily follow you
- See sales information for your titles
- See customer reviews for your titles
- Amend and add to product pages (a great way of adding great editorial reviews you’ve had for your books to your product pages – though unfortunately this is only currently available on the US version of the site)
Make sure to take full advantage of everything offered here – it’s free promotion, and a great way to make people aware of you as a writer and hopefully buy more than one of your titles!
All of the features are self-explanatory and easy to use, so get signed up today and make Amazon work for you!
Here are my author pages on both sites so you can see what’s possible:
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lucy-Felthouse/e/B003ZA5I5E/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Lucy-Felthouse/e/B003ZA5I5E/ref=sr_tc_ep?qid=1316187928
**ALSO**
You can also do the same on the French and German Amazon sites now. Your books will be listed under English-language titles, unless of course you’ve had books translated and sold in those languages.
Use your browser’s translate function or have one of the English language sites open in another tab to help guide you through the process on these two sites, as the layout is identical.