Universal Book Links – Part 2

Posted on March 5, 2015 Posted in GeneralTagged amazon associates, booklinker, createspace, kdp, lynn serafinn, universal book link2 Comments

I wanted to write a short follow-up to my original post on Universal Book Links, to explain how to use the links with Amazon Associate links.

I signed up to be an Amazon Associate a long time ago, and have never made money through it, because I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them. Then after a conversation with Lynn Serafinn on Facebook last night, I realised that I should look into them again, because I had noticed that you can use them with the universal book links from BookLinker.

So, I sent BookLinker and email to ask for their help in setting it all up, and received a very helpful response, within minutes!

You can find the right page by logging into BookLinker, then click on My Account. Underneath your information, you will see boxes to fill in your ‘tag’ for each country. You have to set up a separate account with each country, and apparently to have accounts in India, Brazil and China you must have local bank accounts in those countries, so you may want to not bother with those. I have set up a US account, and to do so, I had to go through a US Tax Interview, similar to what you have to fill out for Createspace and KDP. If you are not in the US, they will only pay you your earnings in Amazon gift cards, but that’s fine by me!

Once I went through the process, which was quite easy, I was given a ‘tag’ which is created from your name and has ’20’ or ’21’ on the end of it. Then I entered the tags into the US and UK boxes on BookLinker and updated my information.

And that’s it! Now, when someone clicks on my universal links, I will earn a small commission when they buy my book from Amazon. Although I had put off doing anything about this for a long time, in reality, it took no time at all to sort it out and from now on, I won’t have to do anything else!

If you have any trouble at all with the universal links, please do contact them for assistance, they are super helpful and very prompt with their responses!

Self-Publishing on Kindle – Part 3

Posted on January 27, 2015January 31, 2015 Posted in Kindle, PublishingTagged amazon, book categories, kdp, keywords, publishing rights, self-publishing an ebook, tips for self-publishing4 Comments

This is a continuation of the Self-Publishing on Kindle series of posts. Part 1 and Part 2 are available.

The next part of Step 1 is:

#2. Verify Your Publishing Rights.

This section is very simple and straightforward – either you hold the copyright to the book and it is entirely yours to publish, or it s book in the public domain, which means the copyright no longer applies to it. If your book does not fall into either of those two categories – you should not be publishing it on KDP.

#3. Target Your Book to Customers

Apart from the categories, the age range and US grade range sections are a relatively recent addition to the process and you deciding who your target audience is, presumably to assist Amazon in the way they display/recommend your books.

In the categories section, you will want to select two categories that fit your book the best.

If you select ‘adult’ categories, the next part – the age range – will automatically be filled with ’18+’. Otherwise, it’s entirely optional to fill in the age range and US grade range sections.

The next part is keywords. This is a tiny part of the form, but is a very important part! This is where you list the relevant keywords to your book. These keywords are what people will put in the search box on Amazon when they are looking for a new book to read. So if you have written a paranormal romance – put that as a keyword. You can only have up to 7 keywords, so choose wisely! Phrases count as one keyword. So ‘inspirational true stories’ would be one keyword. Please take the time to fill this in properly, don’t use it to list other more famous authors, in the hopes of catching some of their traffic, and keep the words relevant to your book.

Click here for Part 4.

Disclaimer: All views, ideas and tips presented on this website are my own, based on my own experience and the experience of my clients. It is by no means the only way to do it, or the right way to do it, but it is the way that works for me. Please take what helps you and makes sense to you, and don’t worry about the rest for now. Please know that I take no responsibility for anything that happens as a result of you following my advice. I have created this blog as a resource for Indie Authors to help them make the publishing journey a little easier. I am not affiliated with any of the companies I mention, other than the fact that I use their services myself.

Self-Publishing on Kindle – Part 2

Posted on January 26, 2015January 31, 2015 Posted in Kindle, PublishingTagged book title, ebooks, how to publish an ebook, isbn, kdp, kindle, publisher name6 Comments

This post follows yesterday’s post – Self-Publishing on Kindle – Part 1

Once you have clicked on the ‘Add New Title’ button, you will be taken to Step 1 of the publishing process. (There are only two steps, but I will be breaking down the process into several posts, so they don’t get too long).

#1. Enter Your Book Details

You need to enter your book title, which should be the exact title as it appears on the cover and how you want it to be listed on Amazon.

You can enter a subtitle – same rule as above applies. Don’t use a subtitle if it’s not actually on the book cover, or if it a tagline on the cover.

You can check the box if the book is a part of a series, and a new box will pop up asking for the series title and the volume number. This information helps your readers know in what order they should read you books.

Enter the edition number. If this is the first time you are publishing your book, you would enter ‘First Edition’.

You can enter a publisher name, which could just be your own name (or pseudonym) but please do check out my post on having a publishing imprint before deciding on what to put in this box. Unless you already have a publishing imprint name, in which case, enter that.

In the next box, you want to put your description of the book, which would be what you would see on the back cover of a print edition. This description will be the synopsis that is visible on your book product page on Amazon, so you will need to work on making it interesting, gripping and intriguing enough for people to be interested in buying your book. I will write a post in the future about writing the book ‘blurb’.

The next button is to add all the contributors to the book. First of all, you need to add your name and choose ‘author’ then you can add other contributors, such as illustrators, editors or the author of the foreword. The names of the contributors are displayed prominently in the Amazon listing, underneath the title of the book. If you have a foreword written by a well-known person, it’s definitely a good idea to include them.

In the language box, leave it as English unless you are publishing another language of course!

Finally, there is a box for the ISBN. As eBooks are assigned an ASIN number, and on Amazon you can link the print and eBook editions together, I have never bought ISBN numbers for my eBooks, as it seems unnecessary. If you do decide to have ISBN numbers on your eBooks, they MUST be a different number to your print books, as all version of your book should have their own ISBN.

For part 3 of the process, click here!

Self-Publishing on Kindle – Part 1

Posted on January 25, 2015February 22, 2015 Posted in Kindle, PublishingTagged amazon account, ebook on kindle, ebook publishing, kdp, kindle direct publishing, self-publishing an ebook, writer beware8 Comments

This is the first post in a series of posts I will write about how to publish an eBook on Kindle. I will do posts on another eBook platform in the future, that covers other eReaders.

To publish books on Kindle, I deal directly with KDP – Kindle Direct Publishing. It is Amazon’s own platform, and all authors can upload their work directly to it.

There are many companies offering services to publish your book on Kindle for you, but by going through one of them, you are simply introducing an unnecessary middle man to the process, who is likely to take a cut of your royalties, and even in some cases, tie you into a contract with them, where they have the digital rights to your book. Which I’m sure I don’t need to say it, but, that is a really big no-no. I will do another post on legalities in the future, but I want to say now – ALWAYS read the small print when it comes to publishing. If you decide to use another platform or company, read their terms and conditions, please! I have nearly been caught out a couple of times by companies who offer to distribute eBooks, which look like a good deal, but on closer inspection, turn out to be a very bad idea. If you want to find out more about what companies to avoid, I would recommend checking out Writer Beware, it’s a great resource.

#1. Getting Started

So, first of all, you will need to sign in to KDP. You can do this with your Amazon account details, or you can create a new account with a different email address to your Amazon account.

#2. Bookshelf

Once you have signed in, it will take you to a page titled ‘Bookshelf‘. There will of course, be nothing on your bookshelf yet, but once there is, it will look something like this:

#3. Details

You will be prompted to fill in your details, like your publishing name and bank details (for royalty payments) and you will be asked to fill in a tax form.

For the bank details, you will need your IBAN number and Swift/BIC code, which you should be able to find either on your bank statement or on your online banking. If you can’t then just contact your bank to ask them for it.

For the tax form, you will need your NI number (for UK residents) or Social Security number (US residents). The UK has an agreement with the US, and by filling out the form, it should say that they will not withhold any taxes on your royalty payments. They used to withhold 30% if you didn’t fill out further forms, but they have revised this recently. It is now a very simple online form that has notes to assist you, and you can provide your electronic signature and simply print it out for your records.

#4. Add New Title

Once you have filled out all your details and the forms, and there are no more prompts, you can click on ‘Add New Title’ to begin the process of publishing your book.

(Self-Publishing on Kindle – Part 2 coming soon)

Michelle is the author and publisher of 8 Visionary Fiction novels, all available on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle. She spends her days helping Indie Authors to publish their books, taking photographs and making gluten-free cakes.

If you need any help with your publishing journey, please do get in touch with her by emailing theamethystangel@hotmail.co.uk. You can book a Skype session or a phone call with her, or ask questions via email. Please do follow this blog to receive more posts on Indie Publishing.

The Amethyst Angel

Tag: kdp