How to Set Up Your Amazon Author Page

My Amazon Author Page at
amazon.com/author/diannebutts

In my July post I wrote:

"Don't have an Amazon author page?! We're going to talk about that next month." 

That would have been August but July got too busy and I didn't get that post done. So let's revisit that idea this month.

I touched on Amazon author pages in my January 2015 post, "25 Free Ways to Market Your Book." (See #2 in that article.) But this month let's go more in depth in how to set up your Amazon author page.

How to Know If an Author has an Amazon Page

When you are looking at books on Amazon, pay attention to the name of the author. Sometimes it's a link. Sometimes it's not. When it is a link, that indicates the author has an Amazon author page set up. Obviously when you click the link, it takes you to the author's page.

When the author's name is not a link, that author has not set up his or her Amazon author page. (Or it's possible they have but that book is not linked to it. If this is the case for you, add that book to your Amazon author page.)

You Must Have a Book on Amazon

Before you may have an Amazon author page, you must have at least one book for sale on Amazon. If you don't, this would be a great time to write an e-book and upload it. See my series of posts "How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-book on Amazon (for Free)" I posted in February, March, April, and May 2016. (Links are at the bottom of this post.) 

If you have contributed to a compilation book or anthology, such as a Chicken Soup for the Soul book or another independently published compilation, and if it is available on Amazon, that counts and you can create an Author page. (Tweet that!  ) You may need to contact Amazon and ask them how to set up your page from a compilation. Let me just say...

I set up my Amazon author page about 15 years ago so I don't remember the details of how I did it, and no doubt details have changed. But it should be fairly easy for you to figure out from AuthorCentral.com.

Amazon's Author Central

To get started, go to AuthorCentral.com. Or you can go to your book on Amazon (or other books) and find the small down-pointing arrow next to the author's name which indicates a drop-down menu. Hover over that and you'll see where it asks, "Are you an author? Learn about Author Central."

It's going to take you Amazon's Author Central. This is where you will open your Author Central account with an email address and password.

Once you do that you'll find the "Welcome to Author Central" page with instructions and links to more how-tos. Click the "Help" button in the upper right beside your name to get right to the basics.

Also on this page is "Author Central News" where Amazon posts news and updates about it's programs.

Once you're in your Amazon Author Central account, you can click on four options across the top of the page. Your:

• Author Page
• Books
• Sales Info
• Customer Reviews.

Click on "Books" to find the books you've authored and connect them to your Amazon author page. Simply click the yellow "Add more books" button, search for you book, and there you go.

The Sales Info tab has sub-menus for your:

• Sales Rank: Shows each of your books and where they rank on Amazon. This will show green and a rise when you sell a book. That's exciting!
• Author Rank: Your overall ranking on Amazon. Like a golf score, the lower the number the better. I heard a long time ago if you're under 100,000 that's good. If you're just starting out you won't be that low, but as I've published more e-books that sell regularly I've been in that zone consistently...which is really cool.
• Nielsen BookScan: Shows when a hard copy of your book sells and in which geographic location. Not all book sales are recorded here since not all bookstores are connected to the Nielsen BookScan. But it gives you a good idea of where sales are taking place. If you advertise in a certain region or hold an author event in a certain location you may see those sales reflected here.

At the Customer Reviews tab you can see all the reviews on your books on Amazon. You can sort them by title, by most recent, etc. It's an easy way to see if you have any new reviews.

Finally, you can click on Author Page and set up many options on your page.

What to Set Up on Your Amazon Author Page

It's pretty easy to figure out what you can do when you get there, but let's just go over what you can set up on your Amazon author page:

Biography

Of course you've seen author's bios on Amazon. This is where the author was able to enter that information. You probably already have a bio you've written for another project (or the back of your book). If not, write one now. 

I think shorter is better. Only a portion will show on your author page before visitors must click to read more. So put the most important info up front. (Tweet that!) Plan it as if what shows will be all that your readers ever read.

Let your personality shine through. Readers enjoy that.

Whenever you need to update your bio or wish to change it, come back to your Amazon Central account to do so.

Blogs

Are you writing a blog? You can connect it here and your latest posts will automatically show up. Pretty cool huh?

This is a great way to direct your book readers to your blog to read more of what you write. It's also a great way to increase your blog's readership. (Tweet that!) 

Events

Are you planning a booksigning? Putting together a live author event? Attending a writer's conference or book expo? You can enter the location, hours, description of the event, and which book you're featuring here. It's similar to an event on Facebook. (Tweet that!) 

I've used this several times. I have it listed on my "to do" list when setting up an author event. It's hard to gauge whether it brings in a bigger crowd to author events. I wonder how many authors actually use this feature on Amazon ... or even know it's here. If we remember to use this feature perhaps Amazon visitors will become aware of it and check it more often.

Now that I've encouraged you to use this Events feature, I want to also caution you. As authors we should think about our personal security and that of our families and homes before we tell the whole world exactly where we will be and when. (Tweet that!) Of course we want to attract as big a crowd of book buyers as we can. But we need to somehow balance that with not telling burglars we're traveling and our home is empty and waiting for their visit. Women traveling alone may not want to let the world know the details of where they'll be and when. In the current climate in our nation, if your book might be controversial, you might want to be cautious about posting the location and hours of your event.

Have you ever thought about this?

I don't know the answers to this dilemma, but part of the solution might be:

• Don't post that "we" (your whole family) will be traveling to an event. Say "I" will be there and let people think your strong, armed husband / family is at home guarding the house.



Booksignings

• Don't post your travel plans, such as when you're leaving or arriving. 
• Don't Instagram yourself in the airport or post elsewhere photos, videos, and comments until after you get back home. 

If you'd like to set up a live author event in a bookstore but don't know how, have no idea where to start, or simply want to hear my tips, experiences, and suggestions, check out my e-book Booksignings.

Author Page URL

When your Author Page is created, Amazon will give you a URL here. You can suggest a change if you want to. Make it easy to remember.  (Tweet that!) 

Copy and paste this URL into a place where it is easy for you to access, such as in a Word document or, better I think, an Excel document where you keep all your links (for each of you books, blogs, etc.).

Also keep it written and handy when you do radio interviews so you can state it easily. Keep it simple so people can remember it. The few times I've done TV interviews I've been asked for information to put at the bottom of the screen as I talk. Your Amazon author page is a one-stop shop for all your books (assuming they're all on Amazon) so let your audience know how to find it.

If you wish, create an easy-to-remember short URL on bitly.com. 

What will you want to do with this URL? If you need ideas, I'll list some below under "What Can You Do With Your Amazon Author Page?"

Photos

Add your author photo of your smiling face. A book sales expert told me a nice photo creates a "relationship" with the reader. Relationships are key to book sales. (Tweet that!) 

This is the same reason you should have your smiling face on the back cover of every print book you produce and in the back matter of your e-books.

Videos

You cannot put a YouTube video on your Amazon page. Plus, Amazon has a lot of rules for what they do not want you to include in your video. Be sure to review those guidelines before you try putting a video on your site.

To find those guidelines, click "add video." A box will open with basic guidelines including this one:

• For more guidelines, please visit our video content guidelines.

I'm thinking I shouldn't upload my book trailer videos I've made on Animoto.com because the Animoto logo is embedded at the end. Also not allowed are "comments relating to book reviews and content visible on the Author Page and detail pages" on Amazon.

Amazon states:

You can share video interviews, book signing videos, and other videos with readers. Your videos should focus on specific features of your books or your experience as an author. Uploading Videos

I never thought to take a video at an live author event. I may think about staging that (getting permission first) next time I hold one.

Right now I'm thinking we could just talk to our laptop cameras and tell potential readers interesting information about ourselves or our books, why we wrote it, that sort of thing. We could also "stage" an interview: type the question on a slide for the video then look off camera and answer as if we're answering an interviewer.

How to Create a Video for Your Amazon Page

If you want to create such a video, use your laptop camera. Upload the video to YouTube and edit it.

While you cannot upload a YouTube video to your Amazon author page, you can save it in an Amazon-supported format and then upload it! (Tweet that!) To do that go to your Video Manager on YouTube and click the drop down menu arrow next to "Edit." Choose to save your video to your computer as an MP4 file. MP4 is one of the supported files on Amazon so you can then upload your MP4 file from your computer to your Amazon author page.

(Hmm. Now that I've figured all that out, I may have to try it myself and write a whole post on this topic! Wouldn't that be fun?! I'll work on it when I have time.)

What Can You Do With Your Amazon Author Page?

Here are some ways you can use your Amazon author page URL:

• in your email signature, 
• in Tweets, 
• in an occasional Facebook post,
• in all your social media bios (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.).
• Link to it on your blogs and web sites. 
• Be sure to put it at the end of your book trailers.
• Include it on your business cards. 
• Put it in your guest posts on other blogs and... 
• your bio at the end of your magazine articles. 
• Include it in the back matter of every book you write. 

Anywhere you advertise yourself, your books, or your brand, you should include an easy link to your Amazon author page because your page will list all your books that you have available for sale (on Amazon). With one click visitors can go to the detail page of any of your books and purchase it. (Tweet that!)

One More Tip...

If you're writing under a pseudonym, you can also open an Amazon author page for your pseudonym. (Tweet that!) You can do so from your regular author page; you don't need a separate account. But to everyone viewing your pen name page there will be no connection to who you are unless you put it there.

You can manage up to three Author Pages this way, though they will not be associated in any way on Amazon.com.  Managing Your Bibliography

If you haven't yet set up your Amazon author page, or if there are some steps here you haven't yet completed, why not do so today?

Or if your Amazon author page has been set up for a while, why not schedule some time to update your bio, list an upcoming event, add a new photo, connect a new blog, or create a new video?

Tweetable:

Why not open or update your #AmazonAuthorPage today? Here's how.  Tweet that:  

Related Articles:

• How to Make Your Manuscript a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 1: Formatting Your Kindle Document
• How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 2 - Front Matter, Back Matter, and Images
• How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon - Part 3 - Get Your E-Book Covers Here! (Not All Free) 
• How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 4 – Uploading Your Ebook

Ways to Market Your Book - Amazon Followers and Giveaways

See the yellow button under my photo?
That's Amazon's Follow program.
Please Follow me on Amazon!

In the previous post we talked about how to get reviews for your book posted on Amazon, Goodreads, and elsewhere. In the four posts before that, from February to May, we walked through the process of getting your book up and running on Kindle. This month, whether your book is on Kindle or is a print book, we are going to talk about some exciting programs Amazon has made available which can help you market your books.

These programs are Amazon's "Followers" and "Giveaways" programs. (Tweet that!) Let's talk about Amazon Followers first, and then we'll talk about Amazon Giveaways.

Amazon Followers

Amazon launched its Follower program in July 2015. If you haven't noticed it, log in to your Amazon account, go to your own author page or the page of an author you'd like to follow, and click the yellow follow button under the author's image. You can see the yellow Follow button under my photo in the image above.

Don't have an Amazon author page?! We're going to talk about that next month.

Amazon does not let us know how many Followers we have. There's no way to find out. However to know that you have at least one, you can follow yourself.

Just what does it mean to have Amazon Followers? Amazon will send out a message to your Followers whenever you release a new book.  (Tweet that!)

You Might be Invited to Talk to Your Amazon Followers

Also, Amazon might invite you, the author, to send out a personal message to your Followers. (Tweet that!) Right now this feature is by invitation only. However I have been invited to send that message several e-books I've released in the past year.

The invitation from Amazon comes in an email. The subject line of the email says something like "a question about your book." When you open the email, you'll see Amazon is asking if you'd like to send a message to your Followers. Obviously it's a no-brainers to take advantage of this opportunity.

At first I didn't really know what to write in my message, But I studied what some of the other authors have written and used that as a guideline.I try to keep my messages short. And I try to use all the best practices I know about selling to customers. (Now that's a huge topic for another time. Or another e-book.)

I have noticed a few things about these messages Amazon sends to our Followers:

1. My message goes out to my Followers a few days after I write it. (I know this because I follow myself so I get my own messages.)
2. Apparently Amazon sends the messages from authors out even at later dates. I have received messages about books that came out quite some time ago after following authors.
3. You can edit the messages you send. I assume then the edited message will go out to new Followers.

It's my understanding that not all authors are invited to send a message to their Followers, so it's possible you may not get that invitation. If you don't, it doesn't mean you've done something wrong, made Amazon mad at you, or Amazon doesn't like your book, as I've heard some authors speculate. I think it's just a program that is developing. Maybe Amazon's algorithms analyze how many books an author has available, how many sales, how many Followers ... in other words, how active the author is. I don't know, I'm just guessing.

How to Get Amazon Followers

So the question I'm sure your wondering about is, how do we get Followers? (Tweet that!) I've been letting my contacts know they can Follow me on Amazon by putting a notice in my email signature line: "Please follow me on Amazon" with a link to my Amazon page. I put the same info in a Tweet that goes out regularly. We can also put a notice on Facebook occasionally.

Another way -- perhaps the best way I've found so far to gather a lot of Followers -- is to use Amazon's Giveaway program. We will talk this more in a little bit under Giveaways.

Related Articles on Amazon Followers:

Here are a couple of articles I found helpful where you can learn more about Amazon Followers:

• Amazon Follow Lets Authors Connect With Fans on The Digital Reader

• Email to Amazon Followers: What to Write? By: Chris McMullen July 23, 2015

Amazon Giveaways

In 2015 Amazon started its Giveaway program. This year Amazon added e-books and products "fulfilled by Amazon" (FBA) to its Giveaway program. Go to Amazon and look at a produce, perhaps your book or e-book. Scroll down below the reviews. Look for a button that says "Set up an Amazon Giveaway."

This is a great program for authors because we can give away our own books and it becomes a great advertising tool. (Tweet that!)

"During the week that a contest runs, traffic to the product pages for the giveaway prizes increases by more than 40 percent in weekly growth, Amazon said."  Geek Wire

Another way authors can use Amazon's Giveaway program, is to give away something that compliments their book. (Tweet that!)

How Amazon Giveaways Work

I ran my first Giveaway in May in the week before Mother's Day. I chose to give away two copies of my print book Deliver Me.

Here's how an Amazon Giveaway works: First you will purchase the products that you're going to give away. Amazon will charge you for the estimated taxes and shipping. Amazon will also run the entire Giveaway. And when it's over, they will ship the prizes to your winners.

Now that Amazon has added e-books to its Giveaway program, it's very easy and inexpensive for an author to run a Giveaway for his or her own e-book. We still earn the royalties on the e-book, so the cost is very low. (Tweet that!)

"Authors can reward entrants with their work in eBook form, so they pay no shipping fees." Geek Wire 

How to Set Up an Amazon Giveaway

Setting up an Amazon Giveaway is fairly simple. Click on the "Set up an Amazon Giveaway" button. You will see three choices for types of Giveaways: random, lucky number, first come first-served. I chose the random and had decided to give two copies of my book as prizes. 

When I set up my Giveaway, I kept getting an error message and it took me awhile to figure out the problem. In the second box under "select a rule for winning," it seemed to me that box was already filled in according to how many prizes I had selected. So I just let it stay as it was. But I couldn't move past this page because I kept getting an error message. I finally figured out that I had to fill in a number in that box. 

I had no idea how many participants I would have in my first Giveaway so I had no idea what number to put in that box. I finally decided on 200. That meant my participants had a one in 200 chance to win. Once I figured out to put a number in that box, I didn't get an error message and I could finish setting up my Giveaway.

I didn't know if 200 would be a low number or a high number for my first Giveaway. Now I wish I would've set a higher number because I hit more than 200 on the second day, I think. Next time I plan to choose a much higher number -- say 2,000.

Next you can choose a requirement for everyone entering your Giveaway. This is what makes sponsoring an Amazon Giveaway a real gem for authors. (Tweet that!) There are five choices that you can select from: follow you on Amazon, follow you on twitter, watch a short video, watch a YouTube video, or no additional requirements.

I selected the requirement to Follow me on Amazon. I had 267 participants before Amazon shut down my Giveaway because all the prizes had been given away. So presumably I now have 267 new Followers on Amazon.

"Authors using Amazon Giveaway can require contest entrants to follow them and their books on Amazon. The feature has resulted in 300,000 new Author Follows since it launched, Amazon said."  Geek Wire

If you want to build up your Twitter platform, you might want to choose the requirement to follow you on Twitter.

"To date, this feature has generated over 2.8 million new Twitter followers, Amazon said." Geek Wire

I haven't yet tried making a short video or YouTube video, but I can see how that would be tremendously valuable for authors. Can't you?

You will need to choose the duration of your Giveaway. You can choose from one to seven days. I read in an article that for some products you can choose up to thirty days if your Giveaway includes an e-book. I haven't yet seen that option for myself yet, but then I haven't tried a Giveaway with an e-book yet.

On the next page I was surprised to see that I needed to set up the Welcome page. You will also need to name your Giveaway. You can upload an image. I used the image of my book. Duh.

Messages to Your Amazon Giveaway Participants!

Then you have the opportunity to write a welcome message to everyone entering your Giveaway. You get from 10 to 250 characters.

After that you get to write a message for the win page and a separate message for the lose page, also 10 to 250 characters. All of these messages can be of great value for authors to market their books and to speak directly to their readers.

Finally, you have the opportunity to limit who sees your Giveaways. You can reduce the likelihood that participants will share your Giveaway with their friends. I wasn't sure what to do with that. But since I was trying to reach the widest audience to let them know about my book Deliver Me, I did not choose that limiting option.

The next page is where you check out and actually purchase the items that will be given away. Once you've created your Giveaway it cannot be changed.

Let People Know About Your Giveaway!

It takes a little time at Amazon to go live, but when your Giveaway is up and running Amazon will send you an email which will include a link to your Giveaway. You will have a Dashboard where your Giveaway is listed. When I have wanted to review my Giveaway, I've had a hard time figuring out how to find my Giveaway Dashboard. So far I have been able to find the link in my browser history. There is supposed to be an easier way but I haven't figured it out yet.

Your Giveaway will have its own link. This is the link you need to share so people can find your Giveaway.

As always, if you don't let people know about it, no one will know it's there. Use Twitter, Facebook posts, other social media, and email to tell people about your Giveaway. (Tweet that!)

Use a hashtag like #AmazonGiveaway. And don't forget to provide the link to your Giveaway in each of your Tweets and posts! 

A Few More Details About Amazon Giveaways

Amazon takes care of everything else. They make sure that people enter only once according to their email address. They do everything to run your Giveaway, and when it's finished they ship the prizes you've already paid for to the winners.

I wish Amazon Giveaways could be set up in advance, however that option is not available. So you have to be thinking about when you want your Giveaway to run and be ready to set it up on the day that you want it to start.

Amazon Giveaways are not connected to you as an author. Anyone can run them using any product on Amazon that allows it. In the same way anyone could use your book as a Giveaway ... which is not a bad thing for an author! (Tweet that!) It might be a good practice to suggest that to people or organizations that our book compliments!

I think Amazon Giveaways can be a powerful way to gain Followers on Amazon, Twitter followers, or to speak to potential readers and book buyers. How might you use this feature to promote your books? (Tweet that!)

One of the articles I read suggested authors might run an Amazon Giveaway during an Amazon Countdown promotion. (Tweet that!) This would generate even more traffic and attention to your book. And an added benefit would be that the cost to you as the Giveaway sponsor would be less when you're buying your own book on sale.

(An Amazon countdown is a sale you can run if your book is an e-book in Kindle's "Select" program. For more information see the benefits of participating in Kindle Select.)

Related Articles on Amazon Giveaways:

Here are a couple of articles where you can learn more about Amazon Giveaways and how they can benefit authors:

• The Geek Wire article quoted above: New features added to Amazon Giveaway, tool for running online promo contests by Madeline Vuong on March 1, 2016

• The Benefits of an Amazon Giveaway for Kindle by: Chris McMullen, March 2, 2016

If you'd like to know when I'm running specials on my books and e-books, please subscribe to my newsletter. You'll get notices when I'm releasing a new book, when my books and e-books are going to go on sale, a few Freebie documents to help you, and more: bit.ly/DiannesNews

This month, why don't you have fun building up your Amazon Followers? Think about setting up a Giveaway to promote your book or e-book.

Related Articles: 

• Ways to Market Your Book - How To Get Book Reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and More

• How to Make Your Manuscript a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 1: Formatting Your Kindle Document

• How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 2 - Front Matter, Back Matter, and Images

• How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon - Part 3 - Get Your E-Book Covers Here! (Not All Free) 

• How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 4 – Uploading Your Ebook 

Ways to Market Your Book - How To Get Book Reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and More

We all need more book reviews, don't we?

In the previous four posts we've talked through how to get your book manuscript available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book. Now that you have your Kindle e-book available, or at least are on your way to that goal, you've got another challenge: There are millions of e-books on Kindle. How do you get your e-book noticed?

Last month at a writers conference I attended, a workshop speaker said the average Kindle e-book sells only seven copies. (Tweet that!) I asked her to repeat that just to make sure I heard it right. Yep, that's what she said. Seven copies.

That's pretty sad, actually. But I have a hunch I know why some Kindle e-books sell so few copies. Many authors have the mistaken idea that they can put their e-book up on Kindle and it will sell just because it's there. This is not true. Like anything else in life, nothing happens without some effort.

So the question becomes, how do you let people know about your Kindle e-book? (Tweet that!)

One way to get any book noticed is with book reviews. But that's not the only way. There are probably millions of ways you can accomplish this, but let's list just a few to get you started, and then we'll talk about how to get reviews of your book.

Ways to get your book noticed

If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know one thing I'm big on is saving time. (Tweet that!) So the first thing I like to do is figure out ways to get organized. At the top of that list is finding ways to cut down on repetitive tasks that take time. Why keep reinventing the wheel?

As you look for ways to market your new e-book, you will be needing some of the same things over and over again. So instead of looking up a link to your book on Amazon over and over again, why not just create a place to store that and other items that you create?

I use Excel spreadsheets to store my links, my Tweets, my notes, and other data that I create. You may wish to use Google docs so this information is available to you online no matter where you are. I used to use a Word document, but it got quite cumbersome to try to find what I wanted. Using an Excel spreadsheet allows me to find what I want more quickly.

So what do I store in my Excel spreadsheet? Here are some ideas. I encourage you to create your Excel spreadsheet or Google doc right now and add information to it as we go down the list:

• The link for your book on Amazon.

Go to Amazon.com, find your book, copy the URL at the top of the page, and paste that into your Excel spreadsheet. Now you never have to go find that link on Amazon again. (Tweet that!)

• Create a short link to your book.

I like to use bit.ly.com. You can use their free program to create a short link to your book. Simply enter that long URL, and let bit.ly shorten it for you. Then you can also customize your short link to put your book's title as the short link. Keep it short. Keep it easy to remember. (Tweet that!) Then take your new short link, copy it, and paste it into your Excel document. Bit.ly will keep statistics of how many people click your link which is fun to know.

• Create Tweets that lead to your book.

You can take the time right now to create half a dozen Twitter messages that you can use over and over. Review my blog article from July 1, 2012, "Making the Most of Using Twitter," and be sure to use the three parts of an effective Tweet.

I like to use HootSuite.com to create my Tweets. This helps me get the lengths right. HootSuite will change your links to an owl.ly.com link, which is fine because HootSuite will also keep statistics on how many clicks that link receives. However if you don't want your bit.ly link changed to an owl.ly link, simply change that part when you store it in your Excel sheet.

As you might have guessed, I suggest you save all the tweets you create in your Excel sheet.

• Send your Tweets out periodically.

If you want to let people know you have an e-book on Kindle, and how to find it, you have to tell them. Duh. So send these tweets out periodically. Obviously you don't want to send out self-promotional tweets so often you drive people crazy, but in my opinion sending them out once or twice a day is not too often. Your Tweet is one drop in the fire hose that is Twitter, so to get them seen they need to be sent out repeatedly. (Tweet that!) Just don't send them out every five minutes.

If you want help keeping your Tweets rolling, you can get my free document "3 Free Low-Maintenance Ways to Keep Your Tweets Rolling!" by subscribing to my newsletter here: bit.ly/DiannesNews

• Use your link on Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, etc.

You can also use the same messages as a starting point for messages on Facebook, LinkedIn, in your blog post or guest blog posts, etc. Be sure to always use a link back to your book. One of the keys to marketing a book is to make it as easy as possible for a potential buyer to complete a transaction. So make sure your links take them directly to your book on Amazon where they may purchase it.

Also, if you have a Page on Facebook, as opposed to a profile, you can schedule posts to go live in the future. You can use the link you stored in your messages to create Facebook posts to run periodically in the future, such as once or twice a week or twice a month.

• Include your short link in your email signature line.

Use this simple step to let people know about your e-book every time you send out an email. People who receive emails from you will be interested in the Kindle e-book you have to offer, so let them know about it.

• Include your short link in your online bios.

Anywhere you have a bio online, for example on your blogs, on your website, on Facebook, on Twitter, include your short link to your book.


I'm sure you can think of many more ways to let people know about your book. Any time you create something new, be sure to store it in your Excel spreadsheet. That way you don't have to create it again the next time you want to use it. (Tweet that!)

Ways to get book reviews on Amazon… And more

Another way to let people know about your book is to get reviews on Amazon. These same reviews can also be posted on Goodreads and other sites, blogs, Facebook… The list is endless. But it can be a real challenge to get those Amazon reviews.

Seen on Facebook, shared from TallPoppies.org/.

I saw this graphic on Facebook a while back and kept it to share with you because I feel like it has such great information. As you can see getting Amazon reviews is pretty vital to your Kindle sales. (Tweet that!)

Because getting Amazon reviews is a dilemma for me too, I recently went looking for help. I found the following article helpful, and I'm working to put it into practice.

• "How to Launch Your Book with at Least 25+ Amazon Reviews" by Tim Grahl

I'm creating a list of people willing to review my e-books. I'm storing that list in the same Excel document. Simply use another sheet in the same Excel workbook and rename it Amazon Reviewers. (Tweet that!)

Here is another article I found very helpful"

• "How to Get Book Reviews -- The 5 Myths" by Shelley Hitz

If you want more, here are some other articles I found in my search: 

• "How To Get Endless Amazon Reviews for Your Book or Product"

• "How to Get Countless Amazon Verified Reviews (and Rabid Fans!)"

• This one has no date (which I despise) so I have no idea how old it is, but for what it's worth: "How to Get Reviews by the Truckload on Amazon"

Finally, be sure to review these guidelines from Amazon. You might want to also share them with the reviewers you recruit.

• Customer Review Creation Guidelines

I hope this gives you plenty of information to get started on your journey of letting people know about your fantastic Kindle e-book, or any other book you have out. (Tweet that!)

Please come back next month when we're going to talk about two exciting new programs Amazon offers: Followers and Giveaways.

Related Articles: 

• How to Make Your Manuscript a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 1: Formatting Your Kindle Document

• How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 2 - Front Matter, Back Matter, and Images

• How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon - Part 3 - Get Your E-Book Covers Here! (Not All Free) 

• How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 4 – Uploading Your Ebook

How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 4 – Uploading Your Ebook

In February we talked about how to format your Word doc to be a Kindle book. We covered making your document from Word and creating your own template.

In March we discussed creating templates for your Front Matter and Back Matter to reuse over and over in new e-books you create, saving you time.

Last month, in April, we talked about how to create a cover for your e-book or places where you can make your own, buy one, or hire someone to make it for you.

Now that we have all the pieces put together for your entire Kindle e-book, let's walk through the process of uploading it on Kindle. Exciting, right?! (Tweet that!)

This month we'll fill out the Amazon forms required to upload your e-book and get it on sale or available for pre-sale. You'll find more in depth information in the instructions you printed off back in February's post. 

While, I'm going to briefly walk through the items on the upload pages, you may want to be familiar with what you'll need. 

Before you go to KDP...

When you're ready to put your e-book online with Kindle, you'll need to have several pieces of the puzzle ready. (Tweet that!) It might help to give careful thought to and prepare your:

• Title
• Subtitle
• Description of your book
• Keywords
• Categories

Title

When choosing a title, carefully choose key words so people searching for your topic will find your book. But note: when you enter your title, it must match what is on your book's cover and inside title page exactly. Amazon doesn't allow any variation here.

Subtitle

Again, use key words to make your subtitle SEO friendly. 

Note: I learned the hard way that subtitles are limited to 200 characters. If you go over, Amazon's search cannot find your book making it unsearchable! (Tweet that!)

Description

Use your best sales pitch here to convince would-be readers that your book is the one they need. 

(Authors are notoriously not good at "selling." I wasn't. I had to learn and study how to sell things. I've taught workshops on what I learned about how to sell your book. I plan to share this information in a new e-book. Please watch or Follow my Amazon page for a coming e-book called "10 Tools for Marketing Your Book." To Follow, click the yellow button beneath my image. Also, watch for a post on Amazon's "Follow" program coming in July.)

Keywords and Categories

Search for and find several books comparable to yours. Visit their Amazon pages, scroll down, and note what categories they are in. You may want to put yours in the same categories. Also note the key words used to describe these books.

Prep Your File for Upload

I create a folder called "Kindle Files - [my e-book title]" and put my final documents there, including my Word document and the HTML document we're about to create. Having all these in one folder makes it easy for me to find every time I need to, like when I want to update the End Matter because I'm releasing a new book, or when I find a correction I need to make.

Now, the first thing you'll need to do is convert your manuscript to an HTML file. You'll find the instructions on pages 12 and 13 of your printed directions from Amazon. Simply use Word's "Save As" and choose "Web Page, Filtered." If asked about "office tags" answer yes.

If you don't have any photos, you're done. If you do have photos, follow the directions in #3 on page 13 of your printed instructions, which is easy: You now have to files with the same title for your book, a folder and an HTML file. Right-click your HTML file, hover over "Send to," and then choose "Compressed (zipped) folder." Now click and drag that folder over the zipped file and let it go. Ta da. You're done. This is the file you'll need to upload on KDP.

Open KDP

Now open your account at https://kdp.amazon.com. If you haven't opened your account yet, do so now.

I'm going to briefly walk through the items on the upload pages and give you hints I've learned along the way. For more in depth instructions, follow the directions in your print out and/or on the screen at KDP.

A WORD OF WARNING: When working on the KDP site, always save your e-book as a DRAFT until you're absolutely sure it's ready to be released -- especially if you want to take advantage of pre-sales and let people pre-order your ebook before it releases. This is because once you set it to pre-order, you can't un-do that without huge penalties! If you un-do it, you'll lose your pre-sale privileges for one year! (Tweet that!) You don't want to do that. So always always always save as a draft...until you've walked through all the steps and understand what you need to have done before you book goes live (final edits or whatever). So always click "Save as Draft," NOT anything that says "Publish."

New Title

On the kdp.amazon.com Bookshelf page, click "Create new title."

Enroll in KDP Select? 

I recommend you DO enroll this book in KDP Select IF, and only if, you plan to sell your e-book ONLY on Kindle. You'll be able to offer special deals when your book is live, which is good for promoting your book. However, if you want to sell your e-book elsewhere, do not enroll your book in KDP Select because this program is for books that are only available on Kindle.

#1 Enter Your Book Details

Title, Subtitle 

Next you can copy / paste (to avoid typo errors) your book's title and subtitle. Again, make sure your title is exactly as it is on your cover and in your book. And make sure your subtitle does not exceed 200 characters.

Series

If your book is part of a series, as my e-books in my "Getting Published" series are, fill in the series title, volume, and editions.

Publisher

Enter the name of your publishing company. Yes, you are now a publisher so come up with an awesome name for your company. (One that no one else is using.) (Tweet that!)

Description

Now, copy / paste into the box that awesome description of your book that you already wrote and double-checked for errors.

Book contributors

That's you. This is where you "Add contributors" and add yourself as the author. The name you put here is how it will appear on Amazon. 

If other people helped with your book that you want to add you can, but you don't have to add anyone else. Maybe if you have someone associated with your book who also has a great presence on Amazon, it might help bring you more traffic if their name shows up.

ISBN

Your International Standard Book Number links to the bar code that stores scan when they ring up their sales. You have to purchase an ISBN  so it costs you money. I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would put one on an e-book, but you can if you want to. It's optional. You may NOT use the same ISBN as on your print book (if you have one). I leave it blank.


Amazon will assign your book an ASIN automatically which is like an ID number for your book. This costs you nothing. When you're book is assigned its ASIN, you may want to make note of it and store it in your marketing materials or somewhere handy. It helps when searching for your book, such as on Goodreads.

#2 Verify Your Publishing Rights

Instructions are right there.

#3 Target Your Book to Customers

This is where you enter two book categories. Choose carefully because this is how readers will find your book. However if you want to change them later, you can. Later you can change this up to see if you get better results being in a different category. 

This is where I look at which categories other similar books are in and do the same.

Age Ranges, etc.

Read the directions and see if it applies to your book.

#4 Select Your Book Release Option

This is where you DO NOT want to click "Make my book available for pre-order" until you're sure you're ready to do so. 

A lot of this you can do in stages as you have time, if you need to. Then keep saving as "draft" (at the bottom of the page). Don't put your book for pre-sale until you have everything set because you can't un-do it!!!

#5 Upload Your Cover and #6 Upload Your Book File

Self explanatory.

I do NOT enable digital rights management (DRM). From what I've read on this topic a few years ago, DRM can cause problems so I opt out of this one. You may want to google it, read up on it, and make your own decision. But choose carefully because I believe if you choose DRM, you CANNOT undo it. Ever!

#7 Preview Your Book

When you have it uploaded, it's always a thrill to actually see it! Take the time to scroll through your entire book on the previewer. You'll see things that need fixed -- like a chapter that didn't start on a new page or a different margin at the top of different chapters.

To fix any problems, you'd go back to your Word document, make the changes, re-save it as the HTML file, zipped file, and drag photo file to the zipped file (as described above), then come back to this page on KDP (from your Bookshelf choose to "edit" your file), and re-upload your ebook. Once done, it will take a little while to be approved, but soon your changes will go live. And your book will never be off line for sales.

At Bottom of Page 

Be sure to click "Save as Draft" until you're sure you're ready for your book to publish or be available for pre-orders.

Page 2 -- Pricing Page

#8 Publishing Territories

I always go with "Worldwide rights."

#9 Pricing and Royalty

Enter the price you want for your e-book. You really should price your book between $2.99 and $9.99 so that you will receive 70% royalties from Amazon.

In special circumstances you may want to price your book outside of that range. For example, I've priced my short e-book "Cutting the Passive Voice" at $ .99. I wanted to offer it so anyone can afford it. Also because it's short, it's very helpful to writers, and I've actually given it for free off my web site in the past.

I wanted an almost-free e-book to "give" away that would help writers. Plus, at the back of this little e-book (as with all my e-books) I have a section of "More Books by this Author." So while I'm only receiving 35% royalty on my 99-cent book, every time it goes out to someone it also has the potential of making them aware of all my other books. I feel it's a win-win for me and my readers.

Consider: What inexpensive yet valuable e-book can you offer for a low price that can also cross-market all your other products? (Tweet that!)

#10 MatchBook

If you ONLY have the e-book version of this book (not a print version), you may not enroll in MatchBook.

#11 Kindle Book Lending (KOLL)

Yes, I always allow my ebooks to be in the Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL). Unlike a regular library, you will get paid a small amount for every page a person reads of your book. So why not? Plus it gets your work out there to more readers, who just may become fans, write you a review, or buy your next book.

At Bottom of Page 

Click "Save as Draft" until you are absolutely positive you are ready to go. Your book is proofread. You've fixed all the problems you've found. Etc.

At this point you can make your ebook go live soon (within 24 hours) by checking the confirmation box and then clicking "Save and Publish." HOWEVER, I think it's very wise to always take advantage of the opportunity to take pre-sale orders.

Making Available for Pre-Orders 

If you want to do so, return to page 1 and click that you want to put your ebook for pre-orders.

You can set the date for your e-book to publish up to 90 days ahead. In my experience, you won't get many pre-orders until the publishing date draws closer. (Maybe if you're famous and your book is greatly anticipated...) But don't get discouraged if you don't see many pre-sales at first.

Understand you can move your date up (closer), but you cannot move your date back (farther away) without stiff penalties. That's why I say to make doubly-sure you're ready to go before you do that.

Also understand that you MUST upload the FINAL draft of your e-book ten days before it publishes. That means you can't make any changes or corrections the last ten days it's on pre-order. That's another reason to make really super sure it's ready to go before you set it for pre-order.

I love using the pre-order option. It lets me get a running start on promoting my book. (Tweet that!) I can strategically pick my publishing date -- maybe to coincide with a conference I'm teaching at or a holiday that celebrates the topic of my book. While I'm waiting for the date to arrive, I can work on many ways to promote the book, including sending out a newsletter, offering guest blog posts, posting notices on Facebook and Twitter that readers can now pre-order -- all with links to the pre-order page on Amazon. I can also create a book trailer and other promotional products.

On that exciting day when your book finally goes live, all your pre-sales count as sales in one day. This could land you on a "best seller's list" in one of those categories you entered for your book. (Tweet that!) Keep an eye on those categories when it goes live and you might seen it go to under 100 on those lists -- and you can click on the link to see it on that list of great books. Then you can celebrate that (and use that fun event to promote your book even more!). Post a link to the list on all your social media.

Your book might also land on a "Hot New Releases" list, which you'll see when you click through to one of the category lists. (Tweet that!)


That's probably more than enough info for this month. So what are you waiting for? Get your e-book cooking on Kindle. Next month we'll talk about ways to market your Kindle e-book so readers can find it, plus ways to get those wonderful, pretty essential Amazon book reviews. It's one thing to have your e-book available among the millions on Amazon. It's another thing to let people know it's there and how to find it!

Here it is!

• My next e-book in the "Getting Published" series releases on May 16! You can pre-order now and get it as soon as it releases!

Releasing May 16, 2016!

Query Letters: 

How to Write the Query (and Cover) Letter You Dread to Magazine Editors and Book Publishers

Includes my formula for writing query letters PLUS 9 actual query letters for you to follow as examples. Order today!

Freebies:

• Get "3 Free Low-Maintenance Ways to Keep Your Tweets Rolling!"
• Also get the free document "Which Rights Are the Right Rights for a Writer to Sell?" 

Get both here:  Subscribe to Dianne's Newsletter 

Related Articles:

• How to Make Your Manuscript a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 1: Formatting Your Kindle Document
• How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon (for Free) - Part 2 - Front Matter, Back Matter, and Images
• How to Make Your Manuscript Into a Kindle E-Book on Amazon - Part 3 - Get Your E-Book Covers Here! (Not All Free)