Friday's Links to Writing & Marketing Blog Posts

AMAZON EXPANDS PRE-ORDER BUTTONS TO ALL KDP AUTHORS

Re: Nate Hoffelder

With no fanfare or official announcement, earlier today Amazon quietly gave indie authors a sales feature some had been requesting for the past several years.

According to a new page in the KDP help section, authors and publishers who distribute their works through Amazon’s publishing portal can now elect to put their next work up for pre-order. Amazon asks them to first upload a draft copy of the work, and promises that Amazon will “publish a product detail page for it within 24 hours of approval”. It’s not clear what Amazon means by approval, but I have confirmed with an author that this is for real.

Pre-order buttons were one feature that many indie authors wanted but few had – in KDP at least. While this option had long been available in iBooks, Amazon had restricted the option in the Kindle Store, limiting it to publishers and a select handful of indie authors.

But not anymore.

. . .

Read the full article HERE!

~*~

If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again:

1. Endings Are Easy. Openings Are Hard. - Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room http://ow.ly/AjGjR
2. Twelve Things You Should Do on Your Personal Google+ Account Right Now http://ow.ly/AjGqV
3. 13 Ways to Impress an Agent - Books & Such Literary Management : Books & Such Literary Management http://ow.ly/AjGCZ
4. Never sell your book. It’s not about the book; it’s about what the book can do for the reader. http://ow.ly/AjGJX
5. 26 Ways to Bring Your Blog to Life | Entrepreneur.com http://ow.ly/AjGNV
6. Resources for Writers: Spark up Your Story - Adding Suspense, Tension & Intrigue – Handout http://ow.ly/AjGRY
7. Characters or Ciphers? Which Are You Casting in Your Story? - Helping Writers Become Authors http://ow.ly/AjGXa
8. Self Promotion - How to Make It Not All About You | Daniel Decker http://ow.ly/AjGZK
9. What Shouldn't be Included in a Novel | The Editor's Blog http://ow.ly/AjHDR
10. Anne R. Allen's Blog: TOOLS OF THE (WRITER’S) TRADE: Lots of them FREE + reviews, how-to videos and cheat sheets. http://ow.ly/AjI2V
11. Why the Hero needs his Nemesis | Stavros Halvatzis http://ow.ly/AjI6m
12. Flash Flood Fiction : Tips For Better Description http://ow.ly/AjIfl
13. How Long Does it Take to Write a Book? | David Bruns http://ow.ly/AjUhm
14. How Do I Format the Line Spacing to Indicate a Mid-Scene Break? | DearEditor.com http://ow.ly/AjUMg
15. 7 Pinterest Marketing Tips to Improve Your Visibility | Social Media Examiner http://ow.ly/AksQp
16. Writer Unboxed » How to Listen to a Famous Author Talk About Writing http://ow.ly/AksZ5
17. The Character Debate: Strong and Vulnerable? | Jami Gold, Paranormal Author http://ow.ly/Aktyg
18. The Seven Deadly Sins of Prologues | Kristen Lamb's Blog http://ow.ly/AktKn
19. How to Market Your Fiction Writing Through the Brilliance of Other Authors by Jason Kong — The Book Designer http://ow.ly/Aku1l
20. How to Use Your Blog to Leverage Social Proof and Increase Your Authority : @ProBlogger http://ow.ly/AkuaQ
21. A Complete Guide to Crawling Inside Your Customer's Head With Empathy Maps - Copyblogger http://ow.ly/Akug8
22. Amazon Expands Pre-order Buttons to All KDP Authors - The Digital Reader http://ow.ly/Al2fy
23. 75 Free Stock Photos to Use in Your Marketing [Free Download] http://ow.ly/AkPt8
24. Fiction University: 10 Tips for Shooting Your Own Cover Photo http://ow.ly/Alft0
25. How to fix a plot hole | Nail Your Novel http://ow.ly/Alfxq
26. Content Marketing Rules: What to Ditch and What to Keep - Jeffbullas's Blog http://ow.ly/AlfHO
27. It's a New Brand World: 14 Things You Need to Know About Marketing Communications Today : MarketingProfs Article http://ow.ly/AlfM1
28. Tweet Images for More Impact on Twitter http://ow.ly/AlfRl
29. How to Create, Publish, and Market an Anthology (and why you’d want to) with J.M. Ney-Grimm | Lindsay Buroker http://ow.ly/AlgHk

Happy writing and running, Kathy