Saturday, December 26, 2009

New Author Central features on Amazon

If you're published, you might want to check out the latest additions to Amazon's Author Central -- the ability to post videos and events on your author page. Author Central is still technically only in beta, and there are indeed a few glitches.

For instance, if you try to enter events, you'll find that you're required to enter a venue (which makes sense) -- but you can't just type the name of a bookstore, library, or other venue. You have to select from their existing list, which includes oddball places like the Safeway in Homer, AK, but not more likely venues such as college campuses or art centers. You have to request, by e-mail, the addition of any venues not in their list, and you can't add your event until they do so.

Still, once such glitches are worked out, both the events and video additions to the existing functionality (including the ability to link your blog to your author page, and author page links from book listings) could be pretty cool. Check them out and make use of one more marketing tool. (And don't forget to look up the author pages for some of your favorite authors, local or otherwise.)

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