In common with many
writers, I have books listed on Amazon. Also, in common with other authors, I attract readers by presenting links to my books on various social networks.
There is, however, a real problem with this as far as Amazon is concerned. Any
link will lead readers only to one specific amazon site - .com, .co.uk, .de,
etc.
This means potential
readers have to either do a search on the appropriate amazon site for their
country, or – holds up hands in horror! – pay extra postage for the books to be
delivered overseas. Let’s face it, we want readers spending their hard-earned
cash on books, not postage. Of course, in the case of an ebook, readers can
only purchase from their home Amazon site.
It would be really useful
if a single link could enable all your readers to find you at their home site,
wouldn’t it? Well, help is at hand. Such a site exists. And – wait for it- it’s
FREE!
I was recently on holiday
in Santorini and kept in touch through my iPad. One of my contacts on Twitter complained
that a link took him to the wrong Amazon site and suggested I try Booklinker.net.
I wasn’t keen to explore during my holiday and, in any case, the iPad, useful
as it is, is no substitute for the desktop iMac with all my links, pictures,
contacts and other settings easily available, so I decided to wait until I
returned home.
A busy week later, I
explored the site and discovered I could very easily set up a universal link to
my Author Page at Amazon. Try it here. However, when I tried to set up links to
my books, I seemed to get nowhere. This, it turned out, was due to my idiocy.
But a simple exchange with the site’s helpful ‘Contact’ service soon resolved
my problems. You’re presented with two screens. The first requires that you
enter the link to your book from the Amazon.com site (just copy and paste). The second allows you to
type in the short name for the link you wish to develop. E.g. http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Faith-Stuart-Aken/dp/1849233144/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382367245&sr=1-1&keywords=Breaking+Faith+stuart+aken becomes http://mybook.to/breakingfaith (By the way, you
need only enter the initial link as far as the end of the unique number: e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Faith-Stuart-Aken/dp/1849233144/
) I have now successfully set up universal links for all my books.
The outcome is that I can
now place quotes from books and reviews on social networks and attach a single
link in the knowledge that it will lead to the Amazon site appropriate to the
reader. What’s more, I’ll know how successful each site is for my books as the
Booklinker site does a count of clicks on each link.
It really is FREE. The
site works on the basis that they get a small commission from Amazon for each
book bought through the links; the author loses nothing and gains a simple and
effective marketing tool.
Try it. You’ve nothing to
lose and a great deal to gain.
Right; now I’ve got to
sort out the links here on my blog and remove all the extraneous ones to the
different Amazon sites. A tedious job I’ll have to do just once but one that I
expect to make life easier for both me and my potential readers. Everyone wins!
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