When Life First was published in June, I set up an Amazon author page using Amazon.com’s Author Central. Â The author page groups all books by an author and provides a quick bio for curious Amazon buyers.
What I learned today was that my author page only shows up for users of Amazon.com, even though the book can be purchased by the various country-specific Amazon sites (like Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de).
Apparently, you have to create an author page on all the different Amazon sites that allow it. I could not find a way to do a Canadian Author page. The newly introduced www.amazon.com.au doesn’t offer an Author Central yet, so not clear if it will pull the author pages from .com or if it will eventually set up a separate registration.
In any event, I’ve created author pages for the US, UK, German and French sites. I made an attempt at Japan, but had some issues logging in. I may pursue it later. Or not. It’s unclear if having an author page in English in countries that don’t predominantly speak English  is helpful. Anyway, here are my Amazon author pages:
Germany: http://www.amazon.de/-/e/B00DFQ5F24
France: http://www.amazon.fr/RJ-Crayton/e/B00DFQ5F24
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/RJ-Crayton/e/B00DFQ5F24
US: http://www.amazon.com/RJ-Crayton/e/B00DFQ5F24/
If you missed my interview on IndieView, please check it out, because in it I mention that I tried to design some covers myself. Tomorrow, I’ll be showing off my pathetic cover attempts. You don’t want to miss your chance to point and laugh, so be sure to check back here tomorrow. 🙂
The Japanese link doesn’t work. I found https://authorcentral.amazon.co.jp/. However I can’t get beyond putting in my email address. It won’t take my password. All the other links worked fine.
Kathryn,
You’re right. I accidentally cut off the .jp for the Japanese Amazon site. Like you, I couldn’t just enter in my username and password. I haven’t figured out if they have a separate system over there, which requires me to sign up for a new username and password, or if something else has to happen. Unfortunately, I’ve been too busy with other things to figure it out at the moment. If you find out the extra step needed for Japan, let me know.
I will do that. But things are pretty crazy on my end too.
Thanks for the links and mini tutorial on how to do this. Greatly appreciated.
Also, IMHO, there is great value in having a page on a foreign language site, even if your page is in English. To some extent, that might serve to be self-selecting for English speaking foreigners, who are your market while your book is only available in English.
Also, take a look at Wikipedia’s article on the number of English-language speakers (and we hope, reader) in other countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population
I don’t trust the article with respect to English. When I was in Beijing, nearly everyone spoke English as a second language, they spoke it well, and had a hunger to learn. China is making a major (unofficial) push to have English (specifically American English) as a second national language. Japan has a reputation (I don’t know how well deserved) as a country where everyone studies English, but nobody really learns it.
Thanks for stopping by, Jim. Glad the links were of help. You make a good point about having an English-language page on a foreign site where English is not the primary language. Interestingly, I actually have sold a handful of copies in foreign countries who don’t get the 70 percent Amazon royalty (which I know from my Amazon 6-weeks sales report–though I haven’t gotten the detailed report yet to know which country). So, some people from non-English countries may be purchasing it, based solely on the Amazon.com info. Truthfully, I’d be happy to sell a lot of books in whatever country (preferably a 70 percent royalty one).
Great information. I am going to watch the video again and then give it a whirl. Thank you for sharing.
I’m glad it was helpful. Thanks for stopping by.
I find this very interesting and am going to check it out.
Definitely check out the other author central sites. Thanks for stopping by.
Good for you. I just put my third book on-line this week and Creatspace wanted me to fill out a survey at the end. My suggestion was to either have a click option that sends all .com author pages automatically to the other sites or to simply do it for us. They’s sell more books and so would we. maybe we could all send the same message to amazon. They do tend to listen.
Thanks, Yvonne. I think I will suggest that. It’s really strange that they give you the option to sell your books in various territories, but not the option to have the profile appear in those territories. Just like you click Worldwide rights when you stick your book in KDP, you should be able to click a similar button for your author page. Same should go for reviews, too. I have 21 reviews in the US and 4 on the UK site. Unless a person specifically opts out, reviews ought to be ported to the other sites, too.
Quick note for other authors. Here are the Amazon Author Central login pages for the four sites:
UK: https://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk
Germany: https://authorcentral.amazon.de/
France: https://authorcentral.amazon.fr/
Japan: https://authorcentral.amazon.jp
And a handy dandy youtube video