I’ve been reading book marketing tips for three years, but recently I learned something that made me want to do the “V8” forehead smack. If you sell your ebooks on Amazon, but only link to the book page in your own country, do you know you might be missing sales?
I live in the US, but if I click on a Kindlebook link that leads to the Amazon UK page, I won’t be able to buy the ebook. If I’m observant enough, I might see a notice on right-hand of the page telling me I can only shop at Amazon.com. BUT if I click on the link provided, it doesn’t take me to the page for the ebook I was looking at on Amazon UK, no, it takes me to the Amazon Kindle storefront! It works the same for all Amazon stores.
So, if I post only Amazon US links on my blog or social media accounts hoping to entice readers to buy my ebook I’m probably discouraging or, at least, frustrating my friends and contacts who live outside the US. If they are interested in my ebook and click the US link I provided, they might very well think the book is not available for them to buy. Bad news, right? BUT …
Did you know you can easily create a universal link that will direct the potential buyer to the page for your Kindlebook in their country’s Amazon store?
I know of two free services where you can create these links: BookLinker and SmartURL. I learned about these through this blog post by Jason Matthews, which includes step-by-step videos to show you how it’s done. I used BookLinker and in a couple of minutes had a universal link to use on my blog, social media accounts, and my other Kindlebooks.
BookLinker is simpler to use. You can create an Author page link or Amazon Associate links also. An advantage to using SmartURL is that you can create a link to your Amazon reviews page and use it in your ebooks to encourage readers to leave a review. So, though my new book link is through BookLinker, I’ll also be creating a review page link through SmartURL and updating my ebooks.
And don’t forget to make a universal link for your print version too. Although Amazon may allow you to buy a print book from any of its stores, who wants to pay international shipping if they don’t have to?
Okay, so how am I initiating use of my new links? By running a book sale, of course. For the next five days (1-5 September) The Brevity of Roses ebook is free! (Remember Amazon has a free Kindle app, so you don’t have to have a Kindle to read Kindlebooks.)
What’s better than one sale? Two sales! So also this week, I’ll be running a Kindle Countdown Deal on An Illusion of Trust ebook! The price starts at $.99 cents and will rise to $1.99 midweek before returning to its regular price at midnight PST on Sunday. (UK price will be £ .99 VAT-inclusive for the duration, with the sale ending at midnight GMT on Sunday.)
Go ahead, readers, click my links!
Linda Cassidy Lewis 
I had some of my friends in Switzerland test my universal links, which I created thanks to your blog post, and they do work. They were brought to the German Amazon site, which is the site for their region. Thanks for this great post. This is very helpful!
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You’re welcome, Christa. 🙂 I wish I’d known this sooner. Also, I like that I can go to BookLinker and see how many clicks my links receive, sorted by country. I’m interested in comparing those clicks to my sales this week.
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Gosh, Linda, for someone who says she’s really in it for the love of writing and not for making money/marketing, you are really in the know! Thanks for the tip. I’ll use it soon.
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You’re welcome, Susan. Though I don’t expect to write a book that will ever be nationally publicized and make me rich, I certainly don’t mind earning something for my hard work. 🙂
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Great tip, thanks LInda! (btw I love the cover and title for Brevity of Roses :-))
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You’re welcome, Deborah. And thank you. 🙂
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