It's a global company selling books to worldwide readers.
If you're an author, you probably do it for the USA branch and maybe the
UK's but not at other foreign sellers. Oversight? Could be a missed
opportunity; an Amazon Author Central profile helps sell books
anywhere. English is the most common 2nd language in the world, and that
profile page is the platform to link readers to your books, bio,
photos, video, tweets and more. Don't believe it helps? My books sell
better in France and Germany, which have author profiles enabled, than
they do in Spain and Italy, which do not (yet). Perhaps there's another
reason, peut-être pas.
Besides the potential for a direct sale, it
can assist with social media connections, website visits, Twitter
followers and more from citizens around the world. Since networking is
vital to an author's platform, this is untapped potential on a global
scale. Imagine your books taking off someday soon in India for example.
What a nice thought.
The list of Amazon countries/regions currently available is:
USA
UK
Germany
France
Japan (I couldn't log in there, maybe you can)
To
find the right page change the USA branch's suffix to the country where
you want to add a profile. Take this link,
"https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/landing?", and change the dot com
to .co.uk, .de, .fr, and .co.jp.
What about Italy, Spain, India, Canada, Brazil and China?
Those presently do not exist but should soon. India could be huge -
over 125 million Indians speak English and a fair percentage must read
it. Even Amazon China should be on the radar for author central
profiles.
Does it really matter in countries where people speak other languages? Because English is the most common non-native language in the world gaining more readers every year - you will sell more ebooks with an author profile filled out. Yes, it matters.
All
of the locations allow links to your books and biography to the author
page. For the USA profile, you can add photos, videos, Twitter updates,
Blog feed and Events.
The UK, Germany and France profiles do not support Blog feed but do support photos, videos, Twitter updates and Events.
I
asked Amazon when more foreign countries will enable Author Centrals
(Italy, Spain, India, Canada, Brazil, China). Their response was, "Although many of our international sites have Author Pages, we look forward to adding more in the future." Vague? Sure, but bet on it happening sooner rather than later.
Your
thoughts? Have you sold books in foreign countries? If Amazon is a
global monopoly, does that cause concern or appreciation for methods to
enable more sales? Let us know in the comments section.
Jason Matthews is the author of the novels: The Little Universe and Jim's Life. He also wrote How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks,
Get On Google Front Page, and How to Make Your Own Free Website: And
Your Free Blog Too. He can be contacted through his websites.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_M_Matthews
0 comments:
Post a Comment