As an author, you now have the opportunity for people from all over the world to buy and read your work. Depending on your audience, it’s totally feasible that 20-25% of all your Amazon sales can come from outside of the US. And that’s without even publishing your work in another language. Turns out lots of people speak English in Great Britain, Canada, Australia and even places like Germany. These days Amazon makes it easy to publish your book internationally. Setting up your book to be available in more than just Amazon US is a one-time effort that can pay back in spades over time.
But, that’s the easy part.
The hard part is promoting your book to readers all over the world. You only have so much time and while you certainly might believe in staying active on social media, you definitely don’t have the time to be creating tweets with links to your book, on a country by country basis.
What you need is one tweet, with one link that drives people to the right book page on Amazon (or any other store for that matter) in their country. That way you can just keep doing what you’re doing — sharing your work — but making it easy for folks to find and buy your books wherever they may live.
Over the years, authors have used Genius Link to better market their books through intelligent links. We work with some of the world’s most recognized authors and publishing houses, and after seeing how our author clients take advantage of our technology, we’d like to share some of the most useful strategies you get with the world’s smartest links to better market your books.
We’ll show you how to use our platform to squeeze out more revenues from every link you share. And while we’re a paid tool ($2 per 1,000 clicks – which should easily pay for itself), we also built Booklinker, a free software solution to authors like you that has fewer features but should do a lot of what you need. So keep that in the back of your mind.
Let’s dive in.
Amazon is Global—Make Sure Your Links Are Too
Genius Link’s global Amazon links are the easiest way to ensure that your readers get to the easiest place to purchase when you’re promoting your book in the world’s largest online bookstore. If you have any kind of international audience you will want to pay attention.
Many authors are unaware of the full scope of the global Amazon ecosystem. Amazon is more than just one store— it’s actually 14 different storefronts across the globe! If you’re posting Amazon links for your readers to click on and purchase your books, it’s imperative to know that amazon.com isn’t the Amazon store for everyone. Readers in the UK are more likely to purchase at amazon.co.uk, readers in Germany at Amazon.de, and readers in Canada at Amazon.ca (you get the picture).
Amazon Has 14 Different Global Storefronts
Genius Link offers authors an incredibly easy way to make sure that every reader gets to your book in the right Amazon store for their geography whenever they click on one of your Amazon book links. Simply drop an Amazon link into our link creator tool, and voila! Our technology will “auto-magically” find your book in all of the different Amazon stores across the globe, and direct each reader to their “local” Amazon store whenever they click.
Genius Link’s “auto-magic” global links also work for iBooks. Similar to Amazon, iBooks is many different country and region-specific storefronts across the globe. If you’re using promotional iBooks links to market your books, you can ensure that every reader gets to a store they can actually purchase by using Genius Link’s technology.
Simply drop in an iBooks link into the geni.us link creator tool, and again we take care of the rest! Anyone who clicks on that link will be directed to their local iBooks store.
Whatever You Do, Become an Amazon Associate
Perhaps one of the easiest ways for authors to get even more benefit out of your existing marketing efforts is to take advantage of the Amazon Associates program. If you’re linking your readers to Amazon to purchase your books, Amazon will pay you a referral commission if they purchase after clicking one of your links— even if it’s to your own book!
Amazon built the Associates Program to encourage online publishers to link people to Amazon to purchase products. As an author sending your readers to Amazon, you’re in a great position to take advantage of this! Don’t worry, it doesn’t cost your readers any additional money. Amazon simply pays you a small percentage of their cut of the purchase price (typically 4-8 percent) just for sending them there. You even earn commissions for anything purchased within 24 hours of someone clicking on your link. That means if someone clicks on your book link, then decides to buy a $1,000 flat screen television, you get a commission for that too!
If you’re already linking your readers to Amazon, use the Associates Program. Seriously. It’s free money.
Another benefit of using the Associates program is that it provides incredibly valuable sales tracking information. You can actually see if people are purchasing your books after clicking on these links. In other words, you can tell when your marketing efforts are working and when they’re not delivering.
OK, now I’ve sold you on the Amazon Associates program. So where does Genius Link fit into all of this?
We’ll Auto Affiliate Every Link for You
Any time you create a global Amazon link with Genius Link, we automatically add your Amazon affiliate tags so you earn commissions on the sales that happen after readers click your links. No need to worry about the link format or adding each your individual Amazon Associates IDs to each link. We take care of that.
No Amazon, No Problem
Do you have a large international audience? If so, you may have a significant amount of readers in countries where there is no Amazon store. As big as Amazon is, there are still many countries where they don’t have total dominance of the online book space.
Good news, Genius Link can help in these situations too! While we have a great tool for automatically making your Amazon links work internationally, we also provide you with the ability to create links with custom destinations for any country through our Advanced Targets feature.
Advanced Targets let you specify specific online destinations for readers in different countries. For example, if you have a large readership in Australia, you may want to send readers in Australia to Booktopia, Australia’s largest online bookstore. Similarly, you may want to send readers in The Netherlands to bol.com, or readers in Singapore to opentrolley.com.
The key thing to realize is that Genius Link allows you to optimize your link for the entire world, even beyond countries where Amazon has a storefront.
We’ll Make Sure That the Link Gets to the Right Place, No Matter What Country Someone Lives In
Similar to Amazon having many different stores across the globe, they also have many different Associates Programs. Using Genius Link for your Amazon links not only makes sure your readers get to the right store to purchase for their geography, but we also ensure that the right affiliate tags are used for the reader’s local Amazon store. This allows you to earn these referral commissions from the different Amazon storefronts across the globe.
Note: Genius Link also provides automatic affiliation for iBooks links using the iTunes Affiliate Program.
Your Book is Published in a Different Language, too? We Got You
If you’re a big enough deal to have your books published in multiple languages, you can further take advantage of Genius Link’s advanced targets to ensure that your readers are sent directly your book in their native translation.
Let Your Reader Decide Where to Buy Your Books
If you’d like to provide your readers with an option to purchase a book in their favorite online store (as not everyone loves Amazon), Genius Link’s Choice Pages are a great solution.
Instead of sending your readers directly to a store front to purchase your book, the Choice Pages provides them with an intermediary page that allows them to select to purchase your book in the online retailer of their choosing.
Curious what it looks like in action? Try clicking this link.
Creating these eye-catching and useful landing pages for your books is incredibly simple with Genius Link. Simply add your different destination URLs, click save, and you’re done!
Insights You Can Actually Use
Writing a book is hard enough, making sure your promotional book links are performing at the highest level should be easy. Luckily, Genius Link is here to make marketing your book a little easier through intelligent links. All of the useful tools discussed above come with robust tracking tools to help you better understand your audience and focus on the marketing channels that work best.
So to summarize, no matter what, if you’re selling on Amazon, be sure to participate in their affiliate program.
And if you’re selling your book in more than one country (and there is no reason why you shouldn’t), use a smart link management tool that automatically directs the reader to the right product in their country’s Amazon (or other) storefront.
Genius Link is the industry leader, with a very affordable pricing plan that only charges you for clicks served. The investment just about always pays for itself, and then some.
Booklinker is a free tool used by thousands of authors.
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Day 22 Giveaway
The Geniuslink team has generously donated 10 authors $30 in credit (~15,000 clicks) to be used over a six-month time period. Accompanying the credit, each winner will also receive a free 20-minute onboarding session to help them get set up and running.
Be sure to comment below to enter to win!
Mario Schulzke…
…is the CMO at Geniuslink, where he heads up all growth efforts. Before coming to Geniuslink, Mario was the CMO at the University of Montana and prior spent 10 years running digital strategy divisions for WONGDOODY and R2C Group.
Find Mario on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram!
Mario is originally from Germany and when not marketing, he spends every free moment on his bike, in the mountains or in some river somewhere.
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