URL Tips For Authors

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Apple Bookstore

To search for your books in the Apple Bookstore: http://itunes.apple.com/us/genre/books/id38?mt=11

Once there, click the genre of your choice and any sub-genres that may apply. The books that appear on the main page are the Top 100 Sellers. To find your book, click the letter of the alphabet that begins the first word of the title.

Kindle Digital Publishing Links

To understand Amazon Kindle Pricing Options: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A29FL26OKE7R7B

To understand Amazon Kindle List Price Requirements: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A301WJ6XCJ8KW0

Understanding Book Page URLs

Here's help for those long Book Page URLs on Amazon and Nook.

When you do a search for an author or a Book Page, for example, my book NOBODY'S CINDERELLA, you get a URL that looks like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Nobodys-Cinderella-Antone-Two-Step-ebook/dp/B006LXJ7Q8/ref=sr_1_10?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1324612597&sr=1-10

Don't copy that and give it out as the URL. Everything beyond the B006LXJ7Q8/ is part of the search parameters--delete all that. Give out the URL as:

http://www.amazon.com/Nobodys-Cinderella-Antone-Two-Step-ebook/dp/B006LXJ7Q8/

This is true for Amazon and Nook. The Nook link is

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nobodys-cinderella-joan-reeves/1107994098?ean=2940013860155&itm=2&usri=joan+reeves

Cut everything past the B&N Product Number and you're left with:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nobodys-cinderella-joan-reeves/1107994098

Shorten All Links If Possible

Shorten all long links to the tiniest bit possible. Open an account with http://bitly.com/ which is free. Or use http://tinyurl.com which is also free. Paste the Amazon and B&N URLs which you reduced into bit.ly or Tiny URL in order to make really tiny.

The Amazon shortened link above now becomes: http://amzn.to/tDcMnt

The Nook shortened link above now becomes: http://bit.ly/uCMCCa

Takeaway Truth

Learn the technical basics that will help you as an author.