There is a small piece of very valuable virtual real estate that you’re eligible to claim and develop if you have a book listed on Amazon. It is called your Amazon Author Central page and most authors ignore it. But then again, most authors are not committed to the idea of building a significant platform. And yes, optimizing your Amazon Author Page can help you do just that.

In fact, here’s what Amazon provides with regard to why you should have this page:

“The Author Page on Amazon.com provides a handy place for customers to learn about you. Helping customers get to know you is an effective way to introduce them to—or better educate them about—your books. On the Author Page, we display essential information about authors—including bibliographies, biographies, author photos, and even feeds to blog posts.” 

And what’s so cool is that a link to your Author Central page appears in the listing for every book you claim as yours.

And here’s an example of Amy’s page…

For this tip, we need to accomplish these items: managing your biography; uploading photos; managing your blog feeds; uploading videos; managing your events; adding your book titles and creating your author page URL.

First, go to http://authorcentral.amazon.com/ and click Join Now. Follow the prompts to open you account and establish your page.

Let’s get started with…

Managing Your Biography: Once you’re logged into your Author Central page, you click on the menu item across the top and choose “Author Page.”

Then look for the “Biography” line item and then click “edit biography.”

Here you will include a short bio. I would simply make a shorter version of the bio you used on your “about me” page that we discussed back in Tip #4: Establish Your Author’s Blog. But essentially, you’ll want to include relevant credentials, achievements, and background about yourself. Also, it’s a great idea to include a sentence or two of personal information about your passions, hobbies, and favorite charities. Don’t be afraid here to include something about your special brand of quirkiness. The idea behind a bio is that you want to give readers reasons to like and trust you. You can also include mentions of your blog or website, though you cannot include HTML, so it won’t be clickable. But those interested can still copy and paste the web address into another browser and check you out so it’s worth including. Try to keep your bio to 250 words or less. Next you’ll want to…

Manage Your Photographs: If you look over to the right (or somewhere down the page if they’ve moved it) you’ll see another line item “Photos,” “add photo,” and “manage.” While you can upload many photos, you can also designate the one you want to show on all of your book listings. The gold outlining around the photo below designates that shot as your official author photo.

Your author photos are pretty important so I would definitely suggest having professional shots done. Of course, you can and should include other photos such as you at a book signing event, speaking at an event, or hanging with a celebrity. Once you have your photos uploaded, choose the one that you want to show on all of your book listings. Next you’ll want to…

Manage Your Blog Feeds: This is one feature we really like about Amazon Author Central: You can keep it fresh and updated by including an RSS feed from your blog so that whenever you update your blog it automatically shows up as an announcement in your Author Central profile and provides a link directly to your blog. Yay! Amazon sending traffic!

It’s super easy to set up too. A bit further down in your Author Central dashboard, you’ll see a line item for “Blogs” and next to that a link to “add blog.” Click there and next you’ll be asked for the RSS feed for your blog. If you have set up a WordPress blog as we recommended way back in Tip #4, then finding you RSS feed is easy. Simply type /feed/ after your blog address (as shown here).

Amazon will then validate your feed to make sure it works and add it to your page. Plus, you can add more than one blog if you desire. If you have your blog on some other platform than WordPress, simply reach out to your service and ask what the RSS feed is for your blog. 

Now each time you update your blog, you’re updating your Author Central page and as long as you’re making at least semi-frequent blog posts, it projects the appearance that you’re fresh and relevant. Both good things in platform building.

Moving down the page a bit further you’ll see an area to…

Manage Your Videos: That’s right, you can upload videos that can be viewed on your Author Central page. Find the “Videos” line item and click “add video.”

What videos should you add?

Here’s the partial list:

• Livestreams
• Tutorials
• You speaking at an event
• Television interviews
• Book trailers
• Reader testimonials

Basically, you’ll want to include any videos that your readers or potential readers might find informative and/or interesting. Additionally, you can designate which video you want to appear first on your page by clicking on it, after which a small gold box will appear around it. That alerts you to the fact that that is the video you’ve chosen. 

Next, if it is applicable you’ll want to…

Manage Your Events: If you are currently speaking or intend to speak at events, this is where you’ll list them. In a later tip, I will recommend a way for you to start speaking at local MeetUps, etc. However, one thing to know about this feature is that it is not auto-updated.

You will need to manually keep it updated, which some authors fail to do. And let’s just say it does not look good for a potential reader to be checking out your Author Central page and see reference to an event you spoke at 5 years ago. That just screams that you’ve dropped out and are no longer relevant and probably not worth reading, much less following. So keep your events updated. I would suggest setting a quarterly reminder in your calendar to check it.

Next, you’ll want to…

Add Your Titles: One of the most important functions of the Author Central page is it gives readers a list of all of your books. But in order for them to appear there, you’ll need to claim them as yours and bring them into your account.

To do this you’ll need to click “Books” on the navigation menu across the top (as shown here).

Next,  click “Add More Books.”

Finally, you’ll be able to search for your books by title, author name, or ISBN. So search and add all of your books.

You’ll need go through this process with every new book.

Got it all updated? Now you’re really cooking with gas!

Last, you’ll be able to…

Create Your Author Page Web Address: And according to Amazon, this is how you do it…

“On the Author Central Profile tab, click add link next to “Author Page URL.”

A URL will be suggested, however you may enter text that meets the following guidelines:

At least 1 character, no more than 30 characters

May use letters, numbers, dashes, periods and underscores

No spaces

No special characters other than dashes, periods and underscores

Profanity is not allowed

If the URL you input is available, click Save.

Your Author Page URL will go live in approximately 30 minutes.”

Now that your page is set up, you can start including a link to it in all of your bios, your blog, and your social media profiles.

Although it goes beyond the scope of this tip, I did want to make you aware that you can manage some of your individual book titles from your Author Central dashboard as well. For example, you’ll be to manage and add editorial reviews, update product descriptions, from the author, from the inside flap, from the back cover, and about the author. And from the dashboard, you can also monitor sales rank and customer reviews. 

All in all, your Author Central page can really represent you well and help you to sell more books and grow your platform. What I like best about it, is once you set it up and optimize it as discussed here, there is very little that needs to be done to maintain it. Just add new titles when you have them and keep your events updated.

Goodreads Author Setup

Goodreads is another site where you will want to set up your author profile. The reason? It is a place where you can find new readers and continue to build your platform.

According to the site, “Goodreads is the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations. Our mission is to help people find and share books they love.”

Essentially, it is another place where the site has put together an audience of people, some of whom could be a part of your platform. Remember our earlier discussion about finding someone else’s audience and then to the extent possible, co-opting it to build your own? This is another example of that.

Goodreads, an Amazon-owned site, has attracted an audience of avid readers. They also support and encourage author members to list their books and blogs and interact with members. They have also built in a number of other features that authors can use to promote themselves and their books.

Let’s get started…

First, if you are not yet a Goodreads member you will need to sign up (it’s free). Sign up here:  http://www.goodreads.com/

Next, you will then need to add yourself as an author-member. The steps to that are here: http://www.goodreads.com/help#join_authorprogram

That is where you will “[s]earch for yourself and click on your published author name. The author name is listed below the title of your book in the search results.”

Next, “[c]licking on your name takes you to your basic author profile page. This page has your name at the top and “author profile” to the right of your name. This page is part of our database of books and authors and is separate from your member profile page (which lists your bookshelves and friends).”

Now “[s]croll down to the bottom of the page. Click “Is this you? Let us know.” to send a request to join the Author Program.”

Then you’ll be asked whether the titles listed as your books are, in fact, accurate.

In the case above, only the first book listed is Amy’s. You can ask for your book list to be corrected by joining the Goodreads Librarians Group on the site and posting a request. Once they clean up your list, you can then apply for Author membership.

That’s it! You’re in…

Now you can continue the setup of your Author profile.

There are three promotional tools you should consider using on Goodreads: the ask the author feature; connect the RSS feed for your author blog; and pursue getting into the Goodreads Spotlight…

Let’s start with…

Using the Ask the Author Feature: The “Ask the Author” feature comes automatically with your Goodreads Author Program. The best part is that it’s completely free. Here’s how one author has taken advantage of this feature…

This feature truly can be powerful because, as we have said all along, one of the best ways to build a platform is by engaging and building bonds with readers. This feature encourages just this sort of interaction and, because it is publicly viewable, other potential readers will be able to read your answers, which in turn alerts potential readers to your openness to answering questions. This will encourage more readers to post questions for you. This is platform-building goodness incarnate!

From your Author Dashboard it is as easy as click the “on” radio button under the “Ask the Author” line item.

You may want to seed your responses by answering the automatic questions suggested by Goodreads like…

Next, you’ll want to…

Connect the RSS Feed for Your Author Blog: Here’s yet another place where having your WordPress author blog set up is useful. That is, you can connect your RSS feed from your blog so that it syncs, allowing your blog posts to also appear on Goodreads.

This is also done from your Author Dashboard under the line item “Your Blog.” You will want to choose the “Already Have a Blog?” heading, then add your RSS feed, and select “show full post.”

Now your entire blog contents will be available on Goodreads. And every time you post to your blog it will auto-update on Goodreads. Lovely!

Now that you have your blog synced, the next thing you may want to do is…

Pursue Getting into the Goodreads Spotlight: Goodreads interviews authors, then features these interviews on their site and in their newsletters. They also feature new author debuts in their newsletter.

To be featured, Goodreads instructs authors to reach out to their staff. And since you’re a new book author, you have an edge!

Goodreads explains that they usually promote authors with recently released books.

 To increase your chances of being featured, I’d encourage you to…

• Determine how your book or background is unique (e.g., your story is based on your family history).
• Pinpoint what readers will gain from your book (e.g., productivity tips).
• Do a draft of your pitch that includes these details and make sure the pitch is well edited.

Of course, there are no guarantees that you’ll be featured. But the site is going to feature some authors. Why not you?

Additionally, within your Author Dashboard, and similar to Amazon Author Central, you can add videos (as long as they are on YouTube) and your events.

A new addition to these cool free features is that you can also use Goodreads to set up powerful paid giveaways.

Goodreads Giveaways: For a fee, you can set up “standard” and “premium” giveaways. There are some conditions to the giveaway such as: Giveaways are for U.S. entrants only unless it is a print book giveaway, which then can include U.S. and Canadian entrants.

Also, your book must be a print or Kindle version and available on Amazon. The max number of books you can give away is 100 copies. The difference between standard and premium is that premium gives you better placement on the Giveaways page and lets you send a message to those who didn’t win. The fees are little pricey, but the exposure you can get can be enormous.

As we hope you can tell, Goodreads can be a very powerful tool in your platform-building journey. With Goodreads under our belt, it’s time to move on to adding some increased functionality to your blog in…

http://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/help?topicID=200497410

http://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/help?ie=UTF8&pn=irid8923953&topicID=200799660

You can check current fees for a Goodreads giveaway here: http://www.goodreads.com/help/list/giveaways