Thursday, October 14, 2010

Amazon and Author Central and First Novel That Moved Me

How's that for combining topics?

In reverse order, Brad Jaeger's fun blog hop got me thinking about the First Novel That Moved Me. "http://brad-jaeger.blogspot.com/2010/09/first-novel-that-moved-me-blog-hop-mon.html" For me, it was a children's book, The Four Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright. This was part of a series that included The Saturdays, Gone Away Lake, and And Then There Were Five.

Enright wrote back in the 1940s and the books were set during the war. I loved those stories and can even today visualize the characters and remember the plots with fond affection.

Next Topic

Yesterday I finished up what I can do on Amazon for Headwind. I'm waiting for Amazon to agree that I'm  the author so I can move ahead with Author Central and also post the cover photo to replace the current "image not available" logo. To start the ball rolling, Amazon contacts the publisher for confirmation that KK Brees and I are the same person. Once this happens, it takes 1-7 days, they say, for this to be processed. Once that happens, I can work at developing my bio there and getting the process started for having this writing blog show up on their site. After it all gets in place, it should be pretty nifty.

Author Central will  allow me to upload a video. I'm thinking that adding the book trailer here would be good. There's also an Events tab where I can post book signing info and other types of upcoming appearances.

Amazon requires an RSS feed for the blog. I tried to add it but couldn't get it to work. Each time I tried, all that happened was that the titles of my recent blogs appeared in the top right corner of the blog. Had to admit defeat and decided to let Murray, my wonderful web guy handle this. Of course I'd changed passwords since we last talked, so that held him up until he got the new one. One more item addressed. He should have it working smoothly shortly.

So, will Author Central benefit the book? Hard to say, but at least it's one more way of expanding my web presence.  As with everything else in the book business, it's "hurry up and wait!"

Thank You

One last item: Thanks to Nancy R. Williams who blogs at http://nrwilliams.blogspot.com. She offered the Cherry on Top Award to those of us poor, awardless bloggers who need a boost. It looks nice on the blog.

7 comments:

  1. I need to set up an author page on Amazon. That RSS thing can be frustrating. You do all this work then cannot progress until the RSS feed works. You try different Web addresses and it doesn't work. Aarrgghh!!!

    Stephen Tremp

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  2. Aarrgghhh!!! is listed in the Lexicon of Author Favorite and Necessary Expressions.

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  3. LOL aarrgghhh...so, it took me awhile to learn how to post links in my post. I will let you in on the secret. When you post there are symbols above the main body. The one that looks like an old style movie reel and is green will allow you to insert the link where you want it. Such as KK Brees. I would highlight your name, click on the reel, that brings up a box, add the link, hit ok and blogger will insert the link on your name.
    Thank you for your comment today.
    Nancy
    N. R. Williams, fantasy author

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  4. Author Central is worth a try. Maybe I need to set up an author page there, too. If I have time over the next few weeks!

    Thanks for following my tour, KK!

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  5. Thanks for the info, Nancy. Best of luck on the tour, Alex.

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  6. I feed my blog to Author Central and I can see that some people come to my blog through Amazon. I guess they want to check me out first before buying my books. So I think it works.

    My Darcy Mutates

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  7. Still having problems. I don't want a list of my blog titles on the blog. I want the orange thingy that connects me to Amazon and other places. AARRRGGGHHHHH!

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