1. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

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    Promote Your Amazon Book For Free

    Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Daniel, Jul 1, 2016.

    As our ten year anniversary month comes to a close, I wanted to end it by giving something back to the community.

    Eligible members who have a book or other publication available on Amazon may submit their writing for free promotion on WritingForums.org.

    The advertisement will be in the form of a 250x250 sidebar banner and potentially other sizes/locations. Your promotion will run for at least 30 days and will rotate with other banners. You must be registered for at least 30 days and have made at least 100 posts to qualify.

    Note that WritingForums.org may earn a small commission from any books sold, just as we do in the Bookstore.

    There are two ways to submit your publication:

    1. Submit it as a Resource in the Member Publications Directory

    This is the preferred option because it provides extra information about your publication, allows you to list other purchase options, allows you to maintain and update it, and because it is easily discovered on our site. Additionally, books listed in the Member Publications Resource section will be much more likely to receive future benefits and promotions because they already exist in a public directory.

    You can find the Member Publication category under Bookstore > Member Publications or by clicking here. To submit your book, navigate to any desired sub-category and click the "Add Resource" button, or click here.

    If you would like a more detailed guide, review the screenshots in the Adding a Member Publication Resource FAQ.

    2. Message Me Directly

    If you prefer an easier option or if you don't want your writing associated with your username, you can send me a PM. This option may take longer for me to review and set up, but it's still available. Be sure to include a direct link to the specific publication you want promoted.
     
  2. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

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    Over the past few days you may have noticed the "Member Publications" sidebar section on the forum homepage and other areas of the site. It's been a long time coming, but this promotion is currently active and running!

    If your book is available on Amazon in print, digital, or audio, then you're eligible for free promotion on WritingForums.org. All you need to do is add your book to our Member Publication's section on the writing resources tab.

    ADD YOUR AMAZON BOOK OR E-BOOK HERE

    Include basic information such as title, description, ISBN number, and available purchase links. It's best to make this page as detailed and professional as possible - it's your sales page.

    Every few days this resource section will be reviewed and new member publications will be added to our advertisement rotation, as seen below.

    Screen Shot 2017-02-16 at 10.50.54 PM.png

    Screen Shot 2017-02-16 at 10.51.03 PM.png

    Currently, this is limited to forum members with 100+ posts. If you haven't reached that threshold yet, that's okay - add your book to the Member Publications section anyway and you'll be eligible for free promotion once you meet the conditions. Changes to this promotion will eventually be made, but for now, this is essentially free, unlimited promotion.

    You don't really want to give @TWErvin2 a monopoly on free book advertisements, do you? ;)
     
  3. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    I can't see it... Have you taken it down temporarily (for whatever reason) or can I just not see it?
     
  4. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

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    @Komposten Right now it's set up not to show for Supporters because it can be considered an advertisement. If a purchase is made the site would earn a small commission. I do think it's somewhat different since we're promoting members of the community - this is actually something I was going to bring up in the Supporter's forum.
     
  5. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    Ah, okay. That makes sense. Yeah, it's probably a good idea to ask the supporters about it.
     
  6. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

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    We've had a great response with this so far.

    I've been updating this about twice a week. We've had approximately twenty-five books submitted so far. As of now, all Amazon books listed in our Member Publications Directory are now alternating in the sidebar (with the exception of very new members). These banners will continue to run indefinitely. I may make it so newer submissions are shown at a slightly higher frequency, otherwise all banners will show evenly.

    On a related note, I've also made several updates to our Amazon.com bookstore. It now includes all of our member's books that are listed in our member publication directory, with new and updated lists of our member's books available in print and our member's books available on Kindle. Additionally, the Amazon.com bookstore is now more friendly on smaller computer screens, tablets, and phones - it previously had a major bug making it difficult to use on smaller screens. The .co.uk and .ca versions will be updated soon.

    I hope to continue to promote our member's books, and hopefully find new ways to help promote our members this year.
     
    Laurin Kelly and Komposten like this.
  7. Bujabs Dennis

    Bujabs Dennis New Member

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    This is GREAT. Am proofreading my book now and this is just added motivation to get the job DONE.
     
  8. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    And if someone happens to add their romance novel to the self-help category by mistake (somehow...?!?) can you move it to the right category for them?

    Asking for a friend.

    Also... https://www.writingforums.org/resources/embers-common-law-book-2.187/

    ETA: WTF?!? I think I need a self-help book on how to not post your book to weird categories on websites... I just tried to put another book in romance and it ended up in self-help. And I was careful this time, so... I blame forces beyond my control.

    Can you please move ANY of my books you may find in "self-help" over to "romance" where they belong?

    Thanks!

    ETA2: Okay, yes, it is confirmed... when I click the "romance" option from the sidebar, it takes me to the "self-help" page. But how the hell did I manage to post the first book I posted to "romance", like, ten minutes ago?!?

    Technology is not my friend.
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2017
  9. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    Solved in a Support and Feedback thread.
     
  10. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    I'd just like to say that every time I log into the forum and I see my book in the sidebar I squeee internally. It really never gets old!
     
    Daniel, Komposten and BayView like this.
  11. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

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    This was a bug. Nice find. Solved. :cool:
     
  12. Stormsong07

    Stormsong07 Contributor Contributor

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    I'm not at that threshold but I don't see how to add my book? I click the link above and it tells me I don't have access. Do I have to wait until I hit 100 posts?
     
    Kim Reese likes this.
  13. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

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    @Stormsong07 That's correct, you'll need to wait until you've made 100 posts and been registered for 90 days.

    When I first made this announcement you could add it but we made some changes to ensure the system isn't abused.

    The upside is that when you meet the threshold and can add your book, it'll be in my queue to add to the Member promotions sidebar. If you added it as a new member without 100 posts it's very possible it could be overlooked and not added to the Amazon banner rotation.

    I'll try to add an alert or notice to alert you once you're eligible.
     
    Stormsong07 likes this.
  14. Stormsong07

    Stormsong07 Contributor Contributor

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    Thank you for the clarification.
     
  15. Ivana

    Ivana Senior Member

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    @Daniel @Komposten Can we include books published in languages other than English?
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2017
  16. Marty Kirby

    Marty Kirby Member

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    Thank you!
     
  17. John Grant

    John Grant Member

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    Once Upon a time: A Guide to Basic Bedtime Storytelling. Not a book about how to read bedtime stories, but a resource for those are afraid to try making stuff up. Its a small book, only a few thousand words. Yet, it's packed with helpful guidance for the hopeful storyteller. The book is available in paperback and ereader formats.

    https://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Time-bedtime-storytelling/dp/1973533189/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr
     
    Shenanigator likes this.
  18. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    Is this still a thing? I'd like to put my novel up, and the above link to the "Add Your Amazon Book" is live, but

    a) I haven't seen any members' books being promoted in the sidebar lately, and
    b) I'm supposed to put something in the top part of the form where I see the dropdown with the yellow, blue, and purple bars, but none of them are labelled.

    Do these things mean this feature is no more, or is on hiatus?

    If any admin type happens to see this thread, please let me know.
     
    Shenanigator likes this.
  19. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    Hmm, good question. I took a look in the admin panel and I can see the old member book ads there but they are all disabled. As far as I could see there was no time limit set for them, but maybe that's handled somewhere else (or Daniel manually turned them off after a while?).

    The "Add your book" form simply adds the book to the Resources section of the forum. It's the same form you get if you go to Resources -> Member Publications -> Add Resource.
    Based on post #2 in this thread it does look like Daniel manually handled adding and removing books from the sidebar, but that's just a guess.

    Anyway, I don't think it would hurt testing it, right? Try adding your book and ping me so I can see if some magic happens somewhere in the back-end. :)
    If nothing happens I could create the ad manually and see if we can get it to show up that way.

    --------
    Regarding the Prefix dropdown, I would guess that there used to be four prefixes there but someone or something has accidentally deleted or corrupted them. Thus the forum thinks there should be four options, while there actually are none (at least from what I can see in the admin panel).
     
    Shenanigator likes this.
  20. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I think its broken - I put my first book in ages ago and it never got displayed, so I didn't bother with the other seven
     
  21. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    This may not be a case of it being broken, but rather that Daniel never created the ad for it in the back-end (assuming he did that manually, which is my guess). From what I can see the latest member publication resource added to the ad list was "Through Time to London", which was added as a resource in April 2017 (can't say when it was added as an ad).
     
  22. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    Were the prefixes genre names? I get that idea from the post @BayView made above.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2019
  23. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    I have no idea. It makes sense that they would either be genre or publication type (novel, anthology, memoir, etc.).
     
  24. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    OK, so I've filled in the form and it seems to have taken. Although . . . was the icon thing referring to the book cover? Don't have an image of it at 96 pixels square. I'll have to work on that.
     
  25. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    The icon is the on that appears in the resources list:
    upload_2019-10-21_12-27-1.png

    You'll have to upload the cover somewhere, though (attach it to the resource as a file). Otherwise the ad listing won't have an image.
     

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