Amazon Offers AuthorConnect on Amazon.co.uk!

This is the note Amazon sent to those who participate in AuthorConnect. Once again, this is a benefit that Amazon offers authors whose books are for sale on Amazon. I can’t think of any sound reason why you wouldn’t want to have this exposure to millions of your targeted audience. That would, of course, be readers.

Greetings!

Here are your need-to-know Author Central updates:

• We’ve launched Author Central on Amazon.co.uk! If you have books available on Amazon.co.uk, visit https://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk to sign up and manage an Author Page. Some of the features available in the US are not yet available in the UK. Join us in our first international venture to promote your work and let us know what you think!

• Some of you may have stumbled onto this feature already, but here’s the official announcement: you can update content in the “Editorial Reviews” section of your books’ product pages directly in Author Central. We know that Editorial Reviews are important to a customer’s
discovery of your book on Amazon.com, and that you sometimes need to make updates or suggest corrections to them.

To learn about the feature, take a look at the Editorial Reviews help page. You can create up to five new Reviews, and request corrections to reviews that have already been submitted by your publisher. You can also update content for author-pertinent topics like “About the Author,” “From the Author,” and “Product Description.” Changes you make will appear on the Web site in 1-2 days; if you encounter any difficulty, don’t hesitate to contact our dedicated author support team.

Sincerely,
Author Central Team
AuthorCentral.Amazon.com
Please direct questions to the Author Central team.


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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . She is also the author of the Amazon Short, "The Great First Impression Book Proposal". She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

Quick Tip on Amazon Connect

I rarely do shorty tips on my blog. It sorta feels like a cheat when my newsletter is full of them for free. But I've been seeing so many authors these days who aren't taking advantage of Amazon Connect.

Amazon Connect is like a profile page on Amazon and is a must for online sales. Full instructions on how to do it are in your copy of The Frugal Book Promoter (Amazon chapter).

Be aware that since I wrote TFBP, Amazon allows you to do a blog for that Connect page and then that blog appears automatically on all your books’ sales pages, even if you've written many books. That means your books' sales pages will look more complete and be more helpful to your readers, too.

And, get this! That blog can be fed from your regular blog (say one on Blogspot or Wordpress) to that page so you don’t have to duplicate efforts. Here’s mine for you to look at: http://budurl.com/CarolynsAmazProfile Scroll down to see the blog entries.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books for writers, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. Her FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. She is also the author of the Amazon Short, "The Great First Impression Book Proposal". Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog.

Q&A: So Why Bother with Kindle?

Question:
One of my Yahoogroups.com friends asked if Kindle was worth the time it takes.

Answer: Monica, I have a retailing background (owner of a small chain of gift stores) as well as a publishing one. And we who are interested in selling books are also intrinsically retailers.

As a retailer I believed that one should offer a product in ways that your customer wanted to buy them. Thus we took credit cards even though it cost us money (4% of every sale or some such!) back in the days when other retailers fought the idea of catering to customers that way.

So, is Kindle important? I don't think you'll sell tons of books with Kindle but you might sell a few to people who really, really want a book like yours but want to read it on Kindle. If your book isn't a Kindle book, they'll find a similar one to yours. You lost a sale. That one sale could be your most important of the year. A director? A TV host? Someone who loves to pass around the good word about books he or she loves? Besides, last I looked, there was no charge to get your book Kindled, so why not?
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.

I'm Dizzy with Amazon's Carnival Ride Widgets

Amazon has just added a new widget authors or people with other products for sale on Amazon to use in their promotion. In case you didn't know a widget is a cute ad-like thing that visitors to your website or blog or wherever can click to buy your book. If you belong to Amazon's Associate Program you can also earn a little commission with each book you sell from any of Amazon's widgets. Each click doesn't give you much but it can add up.

I chose a widget that is Ferris wheel-shaped to show you what it looks like. I chose the narrow configuration so it fits in the space allotted on my blog template. You can see it in the left column of this blog. For those reading this blog by RSS feed you'll find that blog at www.SharingwithWriters.blogspot.com. It is on the left pretty close to the top. Note that there are arrows at the bottom of the Ferris Wheel to help you turn it so you can see all my books. Notice also that some of the books (as they turn around and around for you!) appear to be duplicates. That's because some of them are available for Amazon's new Kindle Reader.

You can also choose a carousel shape rather than a Ferris wheel. That's just a fatter rectangular shape and products go around in a circle horizontally rather than vertically. Here's where you go to get started and it is pretty darn user-friendly. http://widgets.amazon.com/Amazon-Carousel-Widget/.

Now, I know (putting it mildly) that lots of people are mad at Amazon. Make that I know a lot more people than ever before are mad at Amazon. I understand. But Amazon is a powerhouse that can't be ignored. So, I promise you my take on their new policy toward publishers that use POD technology as soon as l have a better grasp on how it will effect you.

In the meantime, don't go changing all of your links away from Amazon. If you wish, add another--one of Amazon's online competitors -- but don't erase the old links. I just don't see how doing that can serve your best interest.

Happy writing, editing and promoting!

Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Websites: http://carolynhoward-Johnson.com (literary)
http://HowToDoItFrugally.com (all things about writing)
Authors' Coalition: http://www.AuthorsCoalitionandRedEnginepress.com
For the Frugal Editor, Amazon-direct: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0978515870/
Blogs: http://AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog focused on book fairs
http://www.SharingwithWriters.blogspot.com, a blog on all things publishing
http://www.TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog focused on YOUR reviews
http://www.TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com, a blog focused on editing, formatting and craft
And now blogging on War. Peace. Tolerance. And Our Soldiers at http://www.warpeacetolerance.blogspot.com.
And now! Squidooing at
http://www.squidoo.com/HowToDoItFrugallyforAuthors
and http://www.squidoo.com/carolynhoward-johnson

Here's the Thing: From Library Thing. Guest Blogged by Annette Fix

Today Annette Fix is guest blogging on a resource that many authors aren't aware of. If you will soon have a book out, for heaven's sake, copy it and save it. ~~ CHJ

If anyone is at the stage where they are ready to send out ARCs for reviews, I highly recommend signing up with the Early Reviewer Program through www.librarything.com.

Library Thing will post your cover image, the back cover copy of your book, and the number of copies you are willing to provide. Their members then have the opportunity to "bid" on receiving a copy. When you sign up for the program, you give Library Thing a list of similar books and their system uses that list to pair your book with the most suitable readers out of the members who bid for the book. Library Thing then emails you an address list of the members who have been selected. Then, you are responsible for mailing out the individual copies to each member.

There were 462 members who bid to receive my memoir, The Break-Up Diet, but I only listed 60 copies available. I mailed the ARCs out on January 28th to the members who had been chosen. And the reviews are beginning to come in! Sixteen, so far. The reviews have been posted on Library Thing (of course), but also cross-posted on Amazon, Facebook (by the readers), and on the readers' personal blogs. You can see how Library Thing posts the reviews here: http://www.librarything.com/work/4670669/reviews

Overall, I think this is a fabulous service that gets your book into the hands of readers, helps spread the word/visibility, and succeeds in getting early reviews posted on Amazon. (So you don't have to bribe your friends to post something! LOL)

My next step is to contact those 402 readers who *didn't* get a copy...

Annette Fix
Author of The Break-Up Diet
www.thebreak-updiet.com
Visit the *new* Break-Up Story Forum
Read. Share. Relate.
www.mybreakupstory.com (launches Valentine's Day)
Senior Editor: www.wow-womenonwriting.com

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.

The "Tell-A-Friend" Link on Amazon is Fun for Readers, Great for Writers

Philip F. Harris, author of Jesus Taught It, Too, sent me a message about his book. Actually he sent it to all of his Amazon list, the list that Amazon calls "Amazon Friends." I'd never used it so I had to go see how it works. Phil says, "Sometimes the easy things are overlooked!"

It occurred to me that this is an Amazon feature that everyone should be using. Here's how. Booklovers keep reading. There's something here for both authors and readers. Even authors who read!

Go to any book's Amazon page. (Authors will probably want to start with the page for their own books! If you need a sample of one of mine, click here. Look on the right side; the 8th box down has a link that says, "Tell a Friend." When you click on that, there is a drop-down menu where you can choose specific friends you added at one time or another or you can choose to send to all of your Amazon friends.

This, of course, works better if you have been collecting Amazon friends all along, but it's worth a whirl to let just a favorite reading friend know about a single book. Authors can put the word out about their own books but also about the books of their author friends. It's Zen. Don't do it often, of course, but every once in awhile give yourself or a fellow author a treat by putting out the word.

For instance, I could send a notice to my Amazon Friends about Lisa See's new book, Peony In Love. Her book has nothing to do with me and I don't know her personally, but I do strongly recommend it. So, shouldn't I help out an author I love and in doing so, give a gift of sorts to my Amazon friends.

In the meantime, an author might want to start building that "Amazon Friends" list so that when his or her book is released, it will be ready to go. Readers can forward the cause of reading the same way. Phil and I both recommend it.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how-to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS. www.howtodoitfrugally.com.

Amazon Vine: A New Amazon Perk for Readers and Writers

Amazon is at it again. The possibilities of Amazon's new program called Amazon Vine in which Amazon supplies f r e e review copies to readers in return for a review on Amazon are mind-boggling. I'm not going to cover them all here, but it appears that Amazon will be offering media lovers (yes, books, too!) free product in return for a promise to review it on the Amazon site. It appears the program is by invitation only.

I can see all kinds of marketing possibilities here. Reading possibilities, too!

Yes, there may be some ethical issues involved. Amazon might receive payment from publishers to sponsor the review copy giveaway, as an example. Read more about that on Steve Weber's Plug Your Books blog, http://e.je/25.

It's also possible that if Amazon is giving regular readers books in return for weighing in with reviews, sales for the publishers and authors might be affected. Wouldn't lots of readers suddenly become Amazon reviewers to get the book they'd like to read free? Just wondering. Maybe not all bad if it encourages more reading.

Apparently, other than the review, this is a no-strings attached offer. Reviewers will be asked to stay within Amazon's guidelines, but will not be influenced to post positive reviews.

We'll see how Amazon handles it!
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If you'd like to get this a copy of this blog in your e-mail box each time one is entered, just sign up on the left column of this blog page. (-:

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.

Amazon Connects You and Me

One of my most recent AmazonConnects ™ (or plog or blog) is about generations and genealogy and writing. I am as hesitant to tell you for sure that AmazonConnect works to sell books as I am most kinds of promotion. The fact is there is always way too little proof of results. One thing I do know! Taken all together, promotion works. And what better way to promote than by writing? And what better way to promote than to target people who read and particularly the people who read your kind of books.

This plog starts:

"Fascination with generations is like tulips. It flares up periodically, dies back and flourishes again. Whether or not generations is a topic of current interest with us, our ancestry is always with us -- with some of us more than others, it is true . . . .."

You can finish the article at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1588513521/ref=cm_arms_pdp_dp/002-3692730-7456014 and you can sign up to receive all my plogs by clicking on the little oval button on the left side of the page. It says, "Add to Your Plog." Heck, you can always delete it when I give you a recipe for my polygamist great grandmother's mustard pickles, but I bet you'll be glad you've got it when I give you tips on promotion (scroll down the AuthorConnect section page for a review of those!)

And what about your plog? Know that the longer you wait to start one, the sorrier you'll be. Amazon's plog is a way to reach people who want to know about you.
 This is a way to try stuff out to see if it works.
 This is a way to fill out your book's page on Amazon. You know, make you look like an active writer.
 This is a way to build loyalty.
 This is a way to recycle other articles you've written.
 This is a way to help out fellow authors (authors who plog together, promote together--or something like that!).
 It may even be a way to sell books!
And it doesn't cost a cent. A very FRUGAL way to go.

And here's another magic quality of AmazonConnect. You can glean the RSS feeds from them and place them on your website, as an example. I've pasted some of mine in this very blog. Just scroll to the bottom of the blog to see how it works and no, I haven't figured out how to rid them of the html code introducing each one. A little at a time, here, OK?