A note to our long-time followers: Hello, MB4 -- I’m back! As an original member of this awesome blog, I’m thrilled to be returning from the depths of the unpredictable volcano that is book publishing today to talk about the brave new world of self-publishing.
At the end of January, I officially became a self-published
author. The first four books of my House Phoenix series are
up on Amazon as ebooks -- and I’ve got big plans for them, and my
do-it-yourself career. I’ll be here every Tuesday to share what I’m learning
through this process, and offer (hopefully) helpful tips and resources for
self-published authors.
Looking forward to talking with you!
--S.W. Vaughn
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Why self-published authors need Amazon Author Central
Everybody knows that visibility is the toughest challenge
for self-published authors. If readers can’t find your books, they can’t buy
them. You’ll find a lot of promotion advice out there, ranging from
out-of-your-budget expensive to please-don’t-ever-do-this and everything in between.
But there are a few simple and effective things you can do to improve your
discoverability.
One of them is to take advantage of your Amazon Author Central
profile.
Here's mine... shiny!
If you didn’t even know you had one of those, you’ll
definitely want to know about this. Every author with books published on Amazon,
including Kindle books, has a profile. If you don’t fill it out, Amazon will do
it for you -- but with several million authors to catalog, they aren’t going to
do a very complete job.
Your Author Central profile can be a great promotional tool,
if you use it. It’s free, it’s already set up for you, and all you have to do
is fill in the blanks!
How do you get in?
Head over to Amazon Author Central
and sign in with your Amazon user name and password. That’s it -- you’re done!
What can you list on
your Amazon Author Central profile?
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Your books: Of course, this is the most important
part. Once you’re signed in, click on the Books tab at the top of the page and
make sure all of your self-published titles are listed. If any are missing,
just click on the Add more books button and search by title or author name.
Ø
Your bio: Amazon gives you plenty of space for
your author bio. Make it interesting, but not too promotional -- and don’t
include links. Even though there are sites out there who’ll give you the “Amazon
secret HTML code” to add links to your book details, resist the temptation. It’s
against Amazon’s TOS (terms of service) and it’s a good way to get your profile
deleted.
Ø
Photos and video: Got pictures of your fans?
Book trailers? Fun author photos? You can upload them to your Author Central
profile and make things more colorful.
Ø
Twitter feed: If you’re on Twitter, it’s easy to
add your feed to your profile page. That way, anyone who finds you on Amazon
can see your latest tweets and follow you with one click.
Ø
Blog feed: This one looks like a great option,
too, but I must confess that I haven’t yet been able to make it work for my
Wordpress site. I’m going to try using Feedburner (a third-party feed site) and
will report back with the results.
Enhancing individual
book pages with Amazon Author Central
If you’ve published through Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct
Program), you know that if you want to change your book’s cover image or
description, you have to go through the Book Details page, and then re-publish
your book -- which means it becomes unavailable for 12 to 24 hours.
Amazon Author Central gives you a way to avoid that. Through
your account, you can change your description and add a lot more informative
sections about each title without republishing -- and though it states the
changes will take 3 to 5 business days, I’ve never waited longer than an hour
for my book listing to update.
In addition to the book’s product description, you can add reviews,
a From the Author section, From the Inside Flap, From the Back Cover, and About
the Author. You can also use the Book Extras section to import content from Shelfari (which you can write yourself as a
Shelfari member – if you haven’t signed up there, it’s free!), like Characters/People,
Quotations, Settings & Locations, Glossary, and more.
Self-published authors: Go forth and fill out your Amazon
Author Central profile today! It’s a great, easy, and free way to spread the
word about your book.
13 comments:
Congratulations on your first 4 ebooks! I wish you great success! I'm hoping to put my first book out this Spring. Thank you so much for all the information on Amazon Author Central. I'll be sure to put it to good use!
S.W. - it's such a pleasure to have you back. We are honored to have you here again, we've missed you! And you just reminded me to take a look at that neglected Author Central page and see what goodies I should add to my page. Thanks so much and welcome home. ;o)
so glad to have you back!!! and thank goodness for Amazon Central!
It is awesome to be back! Thank you, guys -- I missed being here! :-)
Wecome back, Sonya! It's been a long bumpy road, but always knew you'd make it. I'm looking forward to reading your posts and following you lead!
Thank you, Marta! Happy to be here! And I'm glad you'll be giving SP a try too -- it's fun! Mostly. Just as long as you tell yourself that it's fun. LOL
(Repeating this comment, on account of I'm being all angsty about my pic... LOL)
Thank you, Mary! And good luck to you -- it's a really great and exciting time to self-publish!
I'll be putting a lot more tips up here, too. Please feel free to share what you're doing with your first book! :-)
So glad to have you back!!! You are awesome!!
Aw, thank you, Nicole! So are you! :-) I'm very happy to be back.
Your articles make whole sense of every topic.http://www.thepublishacademy.net
Thanks for sharing a few tips.self publishing is really providing a very good opportunity to the writers. It uses less time to publish a book. You can also get any support from them regarding, writing, or marketing.
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