You would think that URLs to your own books on eBook marketing sites would be easy to find so you can link to them from your website or blog, wouldn't you? This is however not always true. Below is information that should help.
Amazon
If you search for your book on Amazon and go to your book listing you get a long URL that you don't really need. The actual short links can be copied from the KDP Bookshelf, but if you need to build the URL automatically on your website using only the ASIN (Amazon ID) here is how to do it:
This is what a standard Amazon URL looks like:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GLNBJ8W
Breakdown:
www.amazon.com - URL of Amazon country
/dp/ - the bit in the middle
B00GLNBJ8W - the Amazon ID/ASIN (can be seen on the KDP Bookshelf)
URLs of the various countries
US - www.amazon.com
UK - www.amazon.co.uk
Germany - www.amazon.de
France - www.amazon.fr
India - www.amazon.in
Spain - www.amazon.es
Italy - www.amazon.it
Japan - www.amazon.co.jp
Brazil - www.amazon.com.br
Canada - www.amazon.ca
Mexico - www.amazon.com.mx
Australia - www.amazon.com.au
How to change a B&N url into a Nook UK url to find your books
I distribute my books via Smashwords and I thought several of them must have been simply refused by Nook UK because they didn't show up when I searched for my name. It turns out they are there, they just don't show up in searches.
It mostly seems to be my adult titles, but there are a couple of others that are simply not there. I have no idea why, but the only way I found them was by translating the B&N url into the Nook UK format. We link to Nook UK from Wittegen Press when we can so that Nook users can easily find our books. For my reference and for anyone else having the same trouble I thought I'd document how to do it.
Here is a B&N url for my latest book Cat's Confidence (it's on both sites which is what made it easy to use).:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cats-confidence-natasha-duncan-drake/1116968975?ean=2940045280310
here is the Nook UK URL:
http://uk.nook.com/ebooks/cats-confidence-by-natasha-duncan-drake/2940045280310
So to translate one to the other you have to do the following three things:
- Replace www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ from the B&N URL with uk.nook.com/ebooks/
- Add a by- before the author's name
- remove the first number and ?ean= (e.g 1116968975?ean=) from the last part of the URL
That then gives you the correct URL on Nook UK for your ebook that is on Barnes and Noble. It doesn't seem to work with big name books because they have different ref numbers, but they'll show up in searches anyway.
Apple (iTunes)
This link gives you a breakdown with all the info you need to make an iTunes URL to link to on your website.
Other eBooks sites just look for your book and it will give you the URL to list on your own site. |
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