Happy Amazon Shopping, Everyone!

snowflake holiday shopping timeAs the holiday season nears, people will be shopping for thoughtful gifts and little extras they may need to accommodate seasonal visitors. More often than ever before, people will do a lot of that shopping online, and Amazon.com will get the lion’s share of digital retail.

That’s no surprise. Not only does Amazon sell everything under the sun, but it has made customer satisfaction a priority with competitive pricing, rapid delivery, and no-hassle return policies.

Indies Unlimited is an Amazon affiliate, which means that if you order something from Amazon though any link you click here, they will pay us a few pennies for the referral. It costs you nothing more to get your shopping done and to support Indies Unlimited at the same time! So, here is a thought: If you are going to shop Amazon this holiday season anyway and you are already right here on Indies Unlimited, why not get to Amazon by clicking here?

We’re not trying to guilt you into anything. We won’t mention all the free content we’ve provided, the helpful tutorials, or free promotional opportunities we make available for authors. No, mentioning that stuff is not our style. Nor will we remind you that IU is run by volunteers who largely do all this out of a sense of responsibility to the indie author community. After all, our humility is a real point of pride. (ahem)

All we’re asking is that if you’re going to buy something from Amazon anyway (and who hasn’t?), that you get there though Indies Unlimited. That goes almost without saying for things like books and Kindles, but even if you decide to get Great Aunt Ida that case of baked beans she’s always wanted, Amazon will toss us a scrap if you go there through an IU link.

So, what do you say? Seems like a win-win proposition. After all, we don’t want to have to send BigAl to sidle up to you to say in his best gangster voice, “Nice shopping list you got there. I’d hate to see something bad happen to it.”

Yes, Amazon Is the Reader’s Friend

Konrath Turow DebateIt appeared to be a dream-come-true for advocates of indie publishing. Those who follow Joe Konrath’s blog have seen him “fisk” statements from publishing insiders, tearing apart their public statements line by line. A frequent target for Konrath’s fisking has been novelist Scott Turow, until recently the President of the Authors Guild. Usually these were accompanied by an offer for Turow to respond, either on Konrath’s blog or in a public debate. Last Thursday (January 15, 2015) Intelligence Squared U.S. held a debate with Konrath and Turow as two of the four participants. Continue reading “Yes, Amazon Is the Reader’s Friend”

Are You Sure the Description of Your Book at Amazon Is Your Latest One?

Guest post
by Sylvia Engdahl

Did you know that people who view your Kindle book during your promotion may not be seeing its current description? If your book has been available for some time and you have revised its description in Author Central without also revising it on its KDP page, they’re not.

Although we were told in the past that the KDP description is not used if a description has ever been entered in Author Central — and some books about Kindle promotion still say this — Amazon has changed its system. The KDP description now overrides whatever was done in Author Central if any change at all is made through KDP, including price or categories. Continue reading “Are You Sure the Description of Your Book at Amazon Is Your Latest One?”

Amazon’s New Series Pages

amazon book series
Is this really a useful tool?

Last year, Smashwords introduced a neat tool called Series Manager which allows authors to link books in the same series together for better discoverability. Well guess what? Amazon has now done the same thing. Supposedly. But not quite. Frankly – not at all.

To be perfectly honest, Smashwords outguns Amazon with this feature – by a longshot. I’ll explain why in a minute. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty first.

Unfortunately, there is a catch, the same as with Smashwords. If you have books that are in a series which are both self-published and published through a press (which uses a different KDP account), you cannot link those together yourself. You can only link the books under your control through your KDP account. To do that, go to your KDP Bookshelf (dashboard) Continue reading “Amazon’s New Series Pages”