Have you ever looked at your KDP sales dashboard and wondered how you can sell more books in other countries? We have a client who noticed she’s selling a bunch of books in Japan and wondered if there’s a way she can rack up more sale there.
Aside from pitching specific blogs in those areas, or doing advertising geared to that market (all of this takes time and money), you could also take a few minutes and claim your Author Central pages in these international countries. It’s quick and easy and the best part is that all the international Author Central pages are the same. So let’s first review countries that do not have Author Central pages set up.
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- Mexico
- Netherlands
These countries all list your book, but don’t have a page connecting all of your titles. What’s ironic is that most of our authors don’t sell a lot of books in these areas, unless the book is connected to them specifically. Like, for example, a book about Mexican heritage with may do well on Amazon’s website in Mexico.
Next, let’s look at the countries that do have Author Central pages, these are:
- France
- Japan
- UK
- Germany
Let’s have a quick look at what you can expect to see on a few of these pages. First – let’s look at France:
It is slightly different than your USA Amazon Author Central page albeit in a different language, right? Of course your author bio will remain in English, but if your books are in English too, this works just fine. Next, let’s take a look at Germany:
The German version of Amazon Author Central looks more like the version you’re used to seeing, once again in a different language.
A note on Japan’s Author Central pages: First, you have to first register yourself there. So you’ll use your same username and password as you do for the US site and it takes just a few clicks, so don’t let the “new registration” deter you.
From there, the system will ask to verify your email; in fact, all of the sites do this. Once it’s verified you’re good to go.
Your Author Central Tools
Pro-Tip! When you’re doing this, use the Chrome browser, it has a quick “translate” button which is far more accurate than any others I’ve tried. In one quick step you can quickly take a Japanese website and translate it into English.
First up you’ll need your bio. Now you can use whatever bio you created for yourself on your US page, but it might be nice if you enhance it to fit the country you are targeting. So, for example, let’s say you have an international mystery that takes the reader from the UK to Germany and beyond, you may want to address that in your bio, that international connection could help to pull in a reader from that country.
Images and Video
A while back, Amazon removed the “add images” to the actual book page, but has now moved this to the Author Central Page, you can add up to 8 images with this and, the best part is you can remove and replace them with new images all the time. So let’s say you’ve released a new book, add a new image. Or you have a promotion coming up, or you’ve won an award, by all means add an image of the award, too. Readers love seeing awards you’ve won!
Your video can be anything from you talking at an event, to an actual book video you did or had done. Video is a great enhancement tool, and the best part? You can upload as many as you’d like, I’ve done as many as three or four but I did not see a video limit per se.
Your Books
The other fun piece about this is that the system is really good about grabbing all of your books, just make sure that you click on the “Books” tab.
The Final Result!
Here you can see Author Central Pages across several countries, they’re robust, engaging and keep all of the author’s books in one place so the readers can spot them easily.
- France: https://www.amazon.fr/-/e/B00AB0CHJQ
- Germany: https://www.amazon.de/-/e/B00AB0CHJQ
- Japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/e/B00AB0CHJQ
- UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00AB0CHJQ
How to Access All of These Pages
And to make it simple for you, here are the links to access and update each of your pages. Yes, it’s that easy!
- France: https://authorcentral.amazon.fr/
- Germany: https://authorcentral.amazon.de/gp/home
- Japan: https://authorcentral.amazon.co.jp/gp/home
- UK: https://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/home
But Does it Sell Books?
Yes, I can tell you it does. In fact authors we’ve done this for have seen a substantial uptick in sales international markets as they’ve updated these pages. Keep in mind that if you already selling books in these markets, this will help you a great deal. If you aren’t, let’s say, selling books in Germany, you may not see any immediate effect there. But it’s still a fabulous thing to have, update and optimize!
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Resources and Downloads
Great article and very useful. I’m following your advice and setting up the additional pages now.
Keep these great posts coming
C T Mitchell
Thank you, CT – and good luck with this. Let me know how it goes for you? I’ve already seen a pretty big uptick in UK sales from it! (that’s for my books) For any fiction books I’ve done it’s helped sales in all areas where the pages were updated.
I see the article mentions Canada once as a page with no author central and then ignores it after that!
Hi Rob, thanks for reaching out! Please contact us at https://www.amarketingexpert.com/book-marketing-services-contact/ for more information.
So cool! I just set up profiles in the other countries. I’ll be interested to see if this helps with sales. And if not, it was quick, easy, and looks nice in case anything catches on. Thanks for sharing!
Angel you’re welcome! Let me know if you see a difference! Good luck!
Hi Penny — Thanks for this great article! I was on a podcast with a British host, who after our recording was over asked me if I had yet set up my Author page at Amazon UK. A friend had given me the link to this article, and my UK friend’s prod prompted to go read it and take action. It actually took some doing — I set up UK, France, and Germany, and all three countries came back saying they’d been unable to verify my identity! Hmm. I have books out with more than half a dozen publishers, including Penguin Random House, Hachette, St. Martin’s, Harper, McGraw-Hill, Simon & Schuster … I mean, geez! But evidently at least one or two “publishers” (I think they may actually have been resellers) had said they didn’t recognize my email address. So I asked my editors at three different houses if they could do anything. I don’t know if it was their prompting, or just the passage of time and the inscrutable Amazon process … but I finally got okayed by all three! (Whew!) It’s great to see those pages up and running — and I look forward to tracking what results may come from that. Thanks so much for this great information!
John hi there, what an ordeal! Please let me know how this works out for you, I’ll be curious. In the tests I’ve done, it’s really helped the overall exposure for the author! Best of luck to you!
Yes, but how do you set up an author central page in countries such as Canada? Or do you just put in a link from amazon.com My book reviews for my books are at amazon.ca and my author central page is on amazon.com – ever since Amazon in its wisdom changed the set up. My author central page was originally set up before all this set-up change. And it would be nice if the book reviews would also show up on amazon.com – which the earlier one did until Amazon switched the setup. It will be interesting to see where my latest book shows up in October – at this point the coming in October part is just at amazon.ca.
Sharon: Contact us to set up coaching!
I setup the international Author Central pages. It was very easy. THANK YOU!!! I did notice that it only lists my books as paperbacks. How can I get their ebook versions listed too?
Thanks for this!!
You’re welcome, and thank you for reading!