Authors, Don’t Buy or Create Your Own Website!

Use Your FREE Amazon Author Page, Instead

Create and Manage Your Amazon Author Page

https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/profile?ie=UTF8&pn=irid3840097
Whether you are a traditionally published or self published, if you have at least one book released on Amazon you can set up your Author page. It’s FREE, hosted on one of the world’s most popular websites (Amazon), and does not require any special knowledge of web page coding.

From your Author Page you can:

  • Update your Amazon Author Profile
  • Add book trailers, videos, blogs, your blog feeds, your Twitter feed
  • List speaking events and author appearances
  • View and add all your published book titles
  • Add your bio, headshot, and extra content for each of your books.

To add books to your bibliography, claim your books in Author Central (you can do this via your book’s ISBN or title) Then:

  • Make sure your author biography is current
  • Add a head shot on your profile page. (This is the author image that will appear on each your Amazon book page listings)
  • Keep your “About the Author” page current, interesting and engaging

Begin by clicking on the tabs at the top of your Author Central Page

Amazon Author Central nav bar

Welcome to Author Central

We encourage you to add or update information about yourself for your Amazon Author Page. Here’s some quick links to important places:

Add Book Trailers

Add a video book trailer to your author page. You can also share video interviews, book signing videos, and other videos with visitors. Your videos should focus on specific features of your books or your experience as an author.

Add a video to your Author Central Page

Your Bibliography

The Books tab in Author Central lists all your books. If any of the books display incorrect information or are not correctly assigned to you, it’s easy to correct.

Books by (your-name-here)

These are the books on Amazon’s (your-name-here) page. Click on any book below to view additional product details or submit corrections.

Are we missing a book?

If a book you’ve written does not appear in the selection below, you may add it now. Please note that only one edition of each work is shown in this list. Click an edition to make sure all related editions are also listed.

 

In the Search field, enter the book title, ISBN, or author name and click Go.

Once you’ve found the missing title, click “This is my book” below that book. If Amazon’s catalog lists your name as the author, you’re all set.

 

Your Biography

Amazon recommends you write your bio offline and keep a saved copy. Once you have proofed your bio, copy the text and paste it onto the Author Central Profile Page. Click on the Author Page tab, then edit  “Biography.”

Biography                                                      Screen Shot 2016-03-26 at 11.42.21 AM

Eddie is founder and CEO of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. He is also an award-winning author with Harper Collins.

Learn more about Eddie at EddieJones.org

 

Please follow the below guidelines to ensure your submission is acceptable:

  • Include a minimum of 100 characters (about 20 words)
  • Use plain text only – no rich formatting (bolds, italics) or HTML
  • Be creative: share anecdotes or interesting details about yourself with your readers
  • See a sample biography.

Click Preview biography to review your work. When you’re satisfied, click Save biography. Your uploaded biography will appear on the Author Page within 30 minutes.

 

Your Blog

Promote your blog from your Amazon author page. When you add your blog’s RSS feed, your latest posts will appear on your Amazon author page. Author Central supports all versions of RSS and Atom blog feeds. Posts created before you add this feed will not be imported. If you want previous posts to appear on the Author Page, you will need to re-post them on your home blog.

Example RSS feed URLs:

http://www.omnivoracious.com/atom.xml

http://www.aldenteblog.com/rss.xml

http://www.chordstrike.com/index.rdf

Specify an RSS feed for your blog

When you add a blog feed, you are linking to a blog you’ve created elsewhere. Whenever you update your blog, the blog teasers that appear on the Author Page on Amazon.com update automatically, within 24 hours of being posted on your blog.

 

Speaking Events

Announce your speaking appearances and book tour stops. Keep your events calendar current. This gives readers a chance to connect with you in person. Plus, groups, schools and churches may invite you to speak!

After you’ve created an event, it will be displayed in the Scheduled Events section. Customers can see the detail of the Event: Venue, location, time, a short description of the event, and the book you’re touring with. This information appears on the Author Page and on BookTour.com. Your personal information is not shared with BookTour.com and remains confidential.

Your Author Central page is your book signing table at the front of the world’s largest bookseller. Use it!

How To Remove Duplicate Listings of Your Book on Amazon

Merchant Seller Multiple Books Spam

This week Southern-fried Fiction author Ane Mulligan discovered her novel Chapel Springs Revival was listed multiple times on Amazon.com. This is a growing problem for authors, publishers, and Amazon. In addition to selling these duplicate listings at higher prices, the proliferation of listings also clutters the already over-crowded Amazon store. You might think Amazon would address this issue on their own, but so far they have chosen to place the responsibility of policing this spam issue on authors and publishers. Here is a screen grab of duplicate listings of Ane’s book.

Chapel Springs Revival

Only the top listing is from Ane’s publisher, Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. Other listings of Ane’s book are more than the list price. They also don’t offer any other versions like Kindle or audiobook. (See below screen grab.)

Chapel Springs Revival-1

Nor do they have the reviews.

Chapel Springs Revival

So how do you get these spam listings removed from Amazon? Easy.

Contact Amazon Author Central from your author page. You have the option to have them call you or email. Ane chose to call. They immediately returned her call. She explained that Chapel Springs Revival is her book but it’s offered by other vendors. She asked them to please make sure that all versions are linked to the one offered by LPC. In this way the correct retail price, all reviews, and all versions will appear on one and only one listing.

This video explains how to remove duplicate listings of your book from your Amazon Author Central page.

 

Thanks, Ane and Normandie Fischer for bringing this solution to our attention.
EJ

Look for eBook Sales to Remain Flat in 2015

The stunning increases in ebook sales from 2012 to 2014 led many to wonder if print books were about to become obsolete. Some predicted e-books would soon represent 50% to 70% of all book sales. Then late in the first quarter of 2014, growth rates slowed. After years of double – and triple-digit increases, ebooks remain at around 30% of revenues for the publishers who report their sales through the Association of American Publishers.

Rise of the Machine
With first-generation dedicated e-readers, consumers could only do one thing – read. But with tablets and phones, the distractions of email, social media updates, and video on demand, pull casual readers away from ebooks, thus dampening sales.

An estimated 80 percent of 18 to 24 year olds own a smartphone.

The growth in smartphone and tablet use offers more eReading opportunities but also more distractions.

Apple Owns the Tablet / Smartphone Market
In tablets, Apple continues to dominate the U.S. market with about 80 million users. Consider:

  • A third of tablet owners use them for reading.
  • Tablet owners are the source of 42% of ebook purchases.
  • An estimated 21 million people read books on their phones but account foronly 7% of ebook purchases.

So Where Do eBooks Go in 2015
The biggest threat to new authors and new titles is the glut of high-quality low-cost ebooks.

The quality ebooks – especially self-published ebooks – has dramatically increased competition.

A decade ago, publishers constrained book supply by publishing a limited number of new titles each year. Not anymore. With the introduction of ebooks, every author can be found on Amazon. This rapid growth in the supply of ebooks has eclipsed demand. This means most new ebooks will sell substantially fewer copies than previous new releases.

Where Does eBook Pricing Go in 2015
Down. During the first years of the ebook revolution, large publishers refused to discount their ebooks. Most tried to sell in the $14.95 to $19.95 range. Meanwhile, small publishers and self-published authors were happy to earn royalty rates of 70% and budget-conscious consumers loved the low prices.

FREE and 99 cent ebooks allowed unknown authors to gain new readers and establish careers. No more.

In the last year, large publishers have stepped up their price-cutting and begun offering temporary promotions on titles from big-name authors. In 2015 these temporary promotions will give way to permanent lower prices on backlist titles from big names and more aggressive discounting on recently released titles.

Will Free work in 2015
As the market becomes flooded with free ebooks, FREE will lose influence. With the glut of FREE, high-quality books, good isn’t good enough anymore. To reach readers, an author must deliver an emotionally satisfying read. This holds true for both fiction and non-fiction. If readers aren’t giving your book four or five star reviews and using words in their reviews like, “wow,” “fantastic” and “amazing,” your book probably won’t stick and sell long term. Books that resonate with readers turn consumers into evangelists.

Is There Life After Amazon?

is there life after Amazon?

“Lord, is there life after Amazon?”

That’s the question isn’t it? For authors and publishers? If Amazon conquers Barnes & Noble, LifeWay, Family Bookstores, and Books-A-Million, will there remain the freedom to write, publish, and sell novels and nonfiction outside of Amazon?

In July Amazon banished LPC from its KDP Select program. When I asked to be re-admitted, they replied, “We can’t offer any additional insight or action on this matter.” So while our titles continue to appear on Amazon as Kindle eBooks, they are no longer prominently featured or promoted by Amazon.

Thus my question to God: “Lord, reveal to me what you want me to learn from this. Show me the next step for LPC.”

Here are a few insights God gave me this week, followed by my prayers.

David was banished from the presence of Saul. I Chronicles 12:1

“Lord, may you be with us and bless us during our time of exile.”

Some Gadites defected to David. I Chronicles 12:8. The least was a match for a hundred. I Chronicles 12:14

“May the God of our fathers see what has happened to Christian publishing, and send modern-day Gadites to help change the face of publishing. Individuals who are strong in faith, where the least is a match for a hundred.”

Success, success to you, and success to those who help you, for your God will help you. I Chronicles 12:18

“I do not assume this verse of success is for LPC, but if it is your will, please give us success in the marketplace.”

Day after day men came to help. I Chronicles 12:18

“I ask that you send men and women to help LPC grow and reach new markets and more readers.”

Will not God also graciously give [you] all things? Romans 8:32

“Lord, show us a better way. Create opportunities for us outside of Amazon. If the LPC Ambassador Program is your idea, bless it.”

I do not know what will become of book publishing in the wake of Amazon’s growing influence, but the trends remain discouraging. Here are a few recent headlines from the book publishing industry.

Beacon Hill Press ClosingKansas City-based Nazarene Publishing House, parent company of trade imprint Beacon Hill Press, will shut down on December 1.

Abingdon re-evaluates publishing programs beyond 2015Abingdon Press, an imprint of The United Methodist Publishing House, announced Thursday that it is reassessing and realigning its Christian Living and Abingdon Fiction programs as a result of shifts in the industry.

Last week I received word that another popular romance imprint was shutting its doors. Each time a house or imprint contracts, another group of authors looks at the landscape and considers self-publishing with Amazon – a company that demands total loyalty.

Where are our Gadites of our day? Where are those men and women eager to change the face of book publishing? If you feel called by God to rise up and run at the giant, please email me. Together, I believe we can make a difference.

One percent of anything with God by your side is a recipe for success.

 

(All typ0s are orijinal and copywrited. Any rebroadcast or distribution without the XPress riden permission of the author is just find by me.) 

 

There Is No Magic

Summers' Love, A Cute and Funny Cinderella Love StoryWhen it comes to book promotion there is no magic.  Authors may think a version of pixie dustpixie-dust can be purchased and sprinkled on their book, but they are mistaken. The book buying business is mysterious but the formula for success is not.

Write a great book and get it into the hands of influencers of that genre. Repeat as necessary.

In four weeks I’ll serve on faculty at the Blue Ridge Christian Novelist Retreat where I’m sure the topic of book sales, the publishing industry, Amazon, Nooks, Kindles, eReaders, print books, bookstores, etc… will be discussed at length. (Did you notice the way I included all those key words early in this blog post? This is a subtle way of marketing you and your books.) I know these topics will come up because this discussion dominates almost every writers’ conference I attend.

For example, this week I returned home from the Maranatha Christian Writers’ Conference. The Somersault Group, a marketing and service firm for authors, ran MCWC this year and several of the workshops – perhaps as many as half – focused on marketing, social media, and platform building. But in one sense these workshops only confounded the conferees.

“Platform seems to be all anyone cares about,” one author complained. “But I’m not (famous author name here) with two hundred thousand blog followers and I doubt I ever will be. Does that mean I don’t stand a chance getting published?”Snoopy, the frustrated writer

No. This author can self publish. But that doesn’t solve the missing magic problem. You still have to find readers. Which brings us back to your first goal: write a great book.

But you may ask, “If I write a great book and no one finds it, no one reads it… what’s the point?” The point is, a poorly written book marketed well will sell … once. A great book marketed poorly may not sell, or may sell years later, but it will always be a great book.

Let me say it again; there is no magic. There is, however, work. Book selling is seed sowing: and authors must sow lots of seeds.

Parable of the SowerThe thing to remember is that not all seed will take root. In fact, in the Parable of the Sower only 25% of the sown seed fell on good soil. That seed yielded a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.

If there were magic, the rich would buy, horde, and use it for themselves. Praise God, when it comes to book selling, we’re all farmers sowing seeds.

Work as if your book’s success depends on you; pray as though it depends on God.

And stop looking for pixie dust.

An Open Letter From Your Publisher

An open letter from your publisherI remember your book. I recall when you pitched the idea and how excited you where when you emailed to announce you signed your contract. I often reflect upon the difficulty we had matching the cover and title to your pre-conceived ideas of how the book should look, the struggles with editing, proofing, and those way-to-many corrections.

I remember your book.

Daily.

In the past few months I’ve come to live by the words of Pastor Mark Batterson: “Pray as if your success depends on God and work as if it depends on you.”

Each day I review our marketing and production strategy and look for ways to improve both. Each day I seek God’s blessing for your book.  I will not give up on its success.

Ever.

Some question whether LPC publishes too many books. We know our staff is stretched thin, ill-equipped to handle the workload, and quite frankly, not always as professional as we should be. We do the best we can but that’s no excuse for shoddy work.

And so I pray for your book and ask God to look past my flaws and bless your words.

My ministry partner, Cindy Sproles, and I started Christian Devotions Ministries because we believed certain authors deserve “the chance” to see their words in print. As the book publishing industry continues to consolidate and shrink, we still feel called to advance – called to publish more books, take greater risks, and expand our boundaries with great faith.

Launching your book was an act of faith.

This is why LPC seeks authors who are eager for “a chance” to do all they can to make their book a success.

LPC works hard to give authors as many tools as possible for the promotion of their book. We study market trends, take classes at writers’ conferences, connect with vendors, and recommend what we believe are the best marketing practices within the industry. But at the end of each day I know I haven’t done enough. Did all I could, but it’s never enough.

This is why we depend on you.

We need you to believe in your book as much as we do. We need you to pray for your book’s success the way we do. We need you to promote other LPC authors and their books the way they promote your book.

You have heard me say before that silo-platform-building (me, me, me promotion) is at odds with the message of Christ. Jesus did not say, “Do for yourself, as you wish others would do for you.” He calls us to help our neighbor, serve others, and fan the flame of encouragement in our brothers and sisters. In short, we’re to tweet, post, pin, and write reviews for others with the same enthusiasms we use to promote our own book.

I don’t know why you signed with LPC, I really don’t. I do know you took a leap of faith. And for that I am grateful.

I am now asking you to take another step of faith. I am asking you to believe in your book and believe that God is at work in LPC, spreading His Message through a variety of voices.

If you will do that, reply in the affirmative to this email and I will add you to a new Pay If Forward email list of LPC authors committed to supporting and praying for one another.

Thanks for listening.

And thanks for believing in the work of LPC and CDM.

###

(All typos are my own. Feel free to borrow and include in your next book.)

Below are a few of the books we’ve published this summer.

Paul's Letters To The Early Church Living Like Lions perf5.000x8.000.indd Chapel Springs Revival

Daddy, Can You Make Me Pancakes? America's Star-Spangled Story - Celebrating 200 years of the National Anthem Enduring Faith - An 8-Week Devotional Study of the Book of Hebrews Messiah to the Messed Up - Because I'm a mess, you're a mess, and we all need a Messiah