Tips for setting up your International Amazon Author Central Pages

I came across this very informative article by Marcy Kennedy while building my Japanese Author Central Page.  Marcy very kindly allowed me to reproduce it here.  Whether are published or not, I would also recommend that you visit her website, and in particular her blog, which has some great articles.  

4 Tips for Setting Up Your International Amazon Author Central Pages 

By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy 

Part of the Indie Author Series 

Last month, I walked you through the 6 Steps for Setting Up Your Amazon Author Page. In that article, I talked exclusively about your author profile on Amazon.com, but Amazon sells books all over the world. While setting up our author page on Amazon.com is the most important (because that’s where we’re likely to sell the most books), we shouldn’t overlook our author pages elsewhere.

You might be thinking, Why do I want to take the time to do that for non-English speaking countries? 

The answer is simple. English is the most common second language in the world. Even if English isn’t the primary language of Germany or India or China, many people living in those countries still speak it, read it, or are trying to learn. Creating an author page on international sites gives us a leg up over authors who only bother to update their Amazon.com page.

Because you’ll want to add the same information as you did for your Amazon.com author page, I won’t go over all of that again. You can read my previous article for details. What I’m going to focus on in this article are the unique things to keep in mind when we’re updating our pages on the international sites.

Tip #1 – How to Find International Amazon Author Central Sites 

Currently, there’s no centralized list of Amazon Author Central sites, so the first thing we need to do is explore a little. Searching for sites is a two-step process.

Google the Amazon site for the particular country you’re interested in. For example, I might type “Amazon France” into my search bar.

This lets you know if Amazon has a site in that country, but what you’re really looking for here is the little country code that comes after www.amazon in the search results. For France, it’s fr.

The URL for all Author Central sites begins like this…

https://authorcentral.amazon.

So once you have the country code, you add it like this…

https://authorcentral.amazon.fr/gp/landing?

And that’s where you’ll sign in to create your author page.

Not all countries currently have Author Central, but more and more are appearing all the time. If you can’t find an Author Central site for a specific country (I’m looking at you Canada), just wait. It will probably appear in the not-too-distant future.

Here are a few sites to get you started:

http://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk
http://authorcentral.amazon.fr
http://authorcentral.amazon.de
http://authorcentral.amazon.co.jp

Tip #2 – How to Read International Amazon Author Central Sites 

Remember how we talked about these sites being targeted at non-English speakers? That creates a snag for those of us who don’t speak multiple languages.

Thankfully, technology gives us two ways around it:

(A) Keep your Amazon.com Author Central page open so you can compare. For the most part, the sites are all the same structurally, so you’ll know what it’s asking for even if you can’t read all the words.

(B) Use Google Translate or download Google Chrome (which comes with a built-in translator) to use as your browser while you create your pages. 

These won’t be perfect, but they’ll be enough to allow you to easily fill in your author pages.

Tip #3 – Some Other Countries Will Want You to Create a New Account 

Some countries will allow you to sign in with the same email and password you used when you created your Amazon.com account, and some countries will require you to set up a new Amazon account with them. If your regular Amazon email and password won’t work, it just means you need to start from the ground up with a new account.

Tip #4 – Don’t Think You’re Doing Something Wrong If You Can’t Find All the Same Features 

Strangely enough, not all international sites are created equal. Some won’t allow you to connect your blog. Some won’t allow you to upload pictures. If you can’t find a particular feature, it’s probably not because you’re blind. It’s probably because it doesn’t exist on that specific site. The key with the international Amazon author pages is to fill out what you’re offered and not worry about the rest.

When you find a site that doesn’t allow you to connect your blog, make sure you include your website address somewhere. Along with claiming your books, this is the most important thing. This is all about providing readers with a way to find more of your books and to form a relationship with you.

Good luck!

Have you taken the time to set up your author page on international Amazon sites? Do you have any other tips I haven’t included?

Marcy Kennedy is a suspense and speculative fiction writer who believes fantasy is more real than you think. Alongside her own writing, Marcy works as a freelance fiction editor and teaches classes on craft and social media through WANA International. She’s also the author of the Busy Writer’s Guides series of books. You can find her blogging about writing and about the place where real life meets science fiction, fantasy, and myth at marcykennedy.com.
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