Author Central - Part 2 - Author's Page

Author Central - Part 2 - Author's Page

Hopefully by now you have already gone in and claimed your Author's Page via Author central. If you already have your author's page created and updated on your book's Amazon page here are some tips on how to maximize this information portal for your target readers viewing pleasure! 

 Now it’s time to go in and set it up! After you have verified your account, you can add content. An explanation of this appears next.

After you log in for the first time, you will see the welcome screen with various content below. The important thing is the tabs at the top.

1.        Home is the page you land on.

2.       Books is where you actually “claim” your book. Within is an “Add more Books” button. Click that and you will be able to link your book with your profile. After any books are added, you will see them here, complete with the # of editions, sales rank, and average review score. If you have more than one version (paperback, kindle, hardback, audio, etc), the stats for the one with the best sales rank will be displayed.

3.       Profile is the next big one. There are five sections here. For each, click the “add” or “edit” link (it’s in blue in the upper right corner of each section). In each circumstance, a window will pop up with specific instructions. They change them sometimes so the screens are not posted here, but it is quite simple to use.

a.      Biography: This is your author biography. It’s fine if you use the same one that you typically use, just remember to update it when it changes.

b.      Blogs: This feature allows you to start an Amazon blog. If you already have a blog, you can add the RSS feed here. You can add as many as you like so if you have multiple blogs, you can have multiple feeds. It creates a sort of 1-stop shopping and you do not have to copy your individual blog entries to Amazon. It can take up to a day for one of your new entries to make it to the Amazon page but it will go automatically.

c.       Events: This is a feature that you should make sure you use. Any author-related events that you have (speaking, book signings, etc), make sure to add them here. This also includes the international book fairs, even if you are doing the “book-in-booth” program when you aren’t actually going to be there. You can still indicate that your book will be represented. The reason this is important is that media will look at Amazon feeds to find out what’s going on. This is yet another way to open yourself up to possible media coverage.

d.      Pictures: This is where you can upload various pictures. Keep in mind that this is actually regulated, so make sure you have rights to these pictures (i.e. they’re ones you’ve taken or created yourself, no images of your favorite movie characters that you found on Google). If you have pictures of yourself from events, these are good to post.

e.      Videos: Just as with pictures, you must have rights to any video that you post here. Keep it book related so any video trailers for your book should go here. They allow videos of up to 500 MB so feel free to upload high resolution (although, depending on your connection speed, it could take awhile). They now allow more than one video to be posted so have at it. Remember, this page is indexed by search engines. From a SEO (search engine optimization) standpoint, video(s) increase the page’s rank. A good example of a video clip can be viewed here: 

           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcuCHQxOdCo

4.       Sales Info: This feature has been enhanced. There is a map displayed here with areas shaded as to where your book has sold (hard copy only, eBooks are not tracked via this medium). The system uses a service called bookscan, which counts the number sold via several mediums, including brick and mortar stores (not all stores report to this service, but the big ones like Barnes and Noble and Borders do). The lined areas are “combined areas”. The population of booksellers in these areas are spread out to the point where reporting numbers may  diminish the anonymity of the store reporting, so they combine these into one. Below the map is a bar graph which tells you the numbers per week of the last 4 weeks. The last graph is the charting of the sales rank. In this area, you can switch between the various formats and look at how they have done historically. You can change it from 2 weeks to 1 month, to “all available”. The key with this area is not to get too obsessed. This does not report every sale as Nook and other eReaders are not part of it, nor every bookseller. Also, the books you sell on your own are not counted here.

5.       Customer Reviews is a tab that shows a list of the reviews for your book(s). You can switch between the “short” view and the “full” view and you can also change the sort order.

6.       Help is the last tab and this is where you go if you are having trouble.

Remember, this is not the same thing as your Amazon Profile, which is what you write reviews under, make purchases through, etc. This is what people will see when they go to your book’s page and click on your name, so it is important.


For an example of an author who has utilized the functions listed above please view this here: (note the author has his blog and video linked).


Author Central Example:


Mike Saxton, "7 Scorpions: Rebellion" 
http://www.amazon.com/Mike-Saxton/e/B003VCX6IM/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

Robin Landry, "When I Dream"
http://www.amazon.com/Robin-Landry/e/B003HE40S4/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0



Once again I hope this helps everyone out! Your comments are always appreciated :)

Kait