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!

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

The Top Ten Mistakes Every Author Needs to Know before Clicking “Self Publish” – Eddie Jones

The Top Ten Mistakes Every Author Needs to Know before Clicking “Publish”Mistake #1 -Spend Thousands with a Self Publishing Firm

The average print self-published book sells about 100-150 copies – and most of these are to friends and family. Many self-pub companies will proof your manuscript but fail to do substantial edits. They sell you marketing plans that seem impressive but do not generate sales Again, most self published books sell 300 copies or less. “Rather than publish hundreds of thousands of copies of a few books, Lulu’s mission is to publish 100 copies of 100,000 books.”~ Publishers Weekly

Mistake #2 -Get a Friend or Family Member to Design the Cover

Sure, you know someone who is a graphic designer, but do they know the CreateSpace specs? Have they worked with a Lightening Source template? Do they know the top three colors that sell women’s books? Are they experts in font design, interior layout, and know what current book designs are trending?

Mistake #3 -Fail to Hire a Content Editor

Critique groups are great but you need two and possibly three editors on every book. If you are going to spend your money hire a content editor to give you macro and micro edits. (Preferably one that has actually worked for a publishing house.) Follow up with a proof editor to catch all the grammar and odd phrasing. Enlist sharp-eyed friends to be your beta readers. Only then are you ready to consider self-publishing.

Mistake #4 -Think the Book Will Sell Itself

No book sells itself.  As the author, you are responsible for the care and feeding of your book. No one else cares for your book the way you do. If God placed this story on your heart then do not abandon it at birth. This is your baby; care for it!

Mistake #5 -Try to Sell to Bookstores

Bookstores do not want your self-published book. They want income, and lots of it. That’s why they sell items other than books. If a bookstore agrees to carry your book or allow you to hold a book signing they are doing YOU a favor. Be gracious, thank them, but do not expect a bookstore to make your book a best seller.

Mistake #6 -Price Your Book to High

You are not Nicholas Sparks or John Grisham so do not expect the consumer to pay top dollar for your book. You may think your book is worth $14.95 but the consumer determines the perceived value of your book. Create an attractive entry-level price, grow legs under your book, and increase the price only after your book has sold hundreds.

Mistake #7 -No Kindle Version of Your Book

You will make more money selling Kindle copies of your book than you ever will selling print. Kindle copies cost less to produce and produce more income for you. Once you understand this you are miles ahead of most authors.

Mistake #8 -Think a Major Publisher Will Want  Your Self-Published Book

They will not. You gave birth to a book. It is yours. A large publisher does not want your book unless it has sold thousands – as in twenty to thirty thousand.  And if you self-published and sold thirty thousand copies and made $1.50 profit on each sale why would you WANT to give a publisher 70% of that profit?

Mistake #9 -Publish a Poorly Written Book

Sometimes an editor cannot fix a manuscript and some books should never be published. First novels, even second and third, are seldom ready for publication. But the allure of self-publishing remains. Fight the urge to see your name in print. Instead, learn the craft. Go to conferences. Sit under faculty who have sold to major houses. Learn from their mistakes – not yours.

Mistake #10 – Ignore Mistakes 1-9 and Think Your Book is the Exception

It is not. The Shack was an exception – and still needs a good content editor. Writing, publishing, and selling a book is hard work. You want it to be hard. Otherwise, all books – even great books – would sell for a penny. Accept that you will have to write a great book, market it, hire editors, cover and book designers, beg for Amazon reviews and be satisfied selling 20 Kindle copies a month for a long time before readers recognize your book is worth $3. Accept that truth and you might be ready to self-publish.