I like Amazon like I like google. In fact, I might be slightly more likely to do a quick search on Amazon. So when there is a book or author I like, I turn to Amazon. (Ok, or to Facebook if I might have a connection.) Anyway, Amazon seems really good to writers, so I thought we could explore Amazon Author Central today.
I will introduce it this way. If you search for an author on Amazon, you’ll find a list of books. If you click on the name written in blue, it will take you to an Author’s Page. This page lists your work with a spot for a bio and a place for a blog. Here’s my example.
In short, it gives you a brief webpage all your own that you can forward to whomever you want. Even better, it is accessible to anyone who stumbles upon you or your book in any way through Amazon.
How does Amazon keep such pages up to date when, you know, sometimes you used a middle initial and sometimes you didn’t? You do it via Amazon Author Central.
Not only does it let you update various Amazon pages pertaining to you, it tracks sales! It shows your comments all together so you don’t have to check each separate book! You can even share speaking events, videos, etc. Search and explore. All entirely as a FREE SERVICE.
Now, does that mean Amazon is like Wikipedia and you can rewrite anything you want? No. Reviews from other sources—like a publisher—cannot be edited, and your publisher may be the one to create the actual book page.
The Author’s Page, however, is yours. After all, you might work with more than one publisher.
I very much encourage authors to make use of the Amazon services. Nielson BookScan is a data provider that tracks book sales and not merely a sales tracker through Amazon. Which is to say, this is a way to track sales across the board without waiting for those rare “royalty” letters!
Except you should also brace yourself. No matter who you are, you’ll likely look at your Author rank or book sales, be excited for a bit and then get disheartened. After all, sales rankings go down pretty much immediately, if not an hour later. And those comments? So often fail to address the actual person (or the actual book). (I addressed that a little here.)
But let’s say our piece, track our play, and keep writing away. 🙂
