“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” ~Steve Jobs
Before I get started, let me just point you to my own brand new URL that I’m currently using for my Amazon Author page – it’s BooksAngieWrote.com. Check it out!
And now, for the real point of this post.
I’m super lazy sometimes, and thanks to a pretty good memory, I hardly ever look stuff up when it comes to numbers (phone numbers, social security numbers, membership numbers, account numbers, etc.), I tend to memorize them to save time.
Same thing goes for my writing and marketing stuff – including tools and things that make my life easier. Obviously, a good portion of my work is done online, so it would only make sense that a lot of those tools are there too.
And even though I might make a handy-dandy reference list on one computer or the other, it’s highly unlikely I’ll actively use it if I’m sort of in a mid-inspired-work-mode – especially if I don’t happen to be working wherever it was I made that list.
You’ve got to know yourself, and lately, I’ve been practicing a sort of radical self acceptance. It makes life easier, because rather than beating myself up for my limitations, I simply allow for them and adapt.
Anyhoo, this applies to my Kindle marketing world in a pretty fun way: if I can memorize a URL or a password or login, I’ll do it. If not, I’ll probably under-utilize whatever tool it is I’m trying to use.
How to Use Your Own URL for Your Amazon Author Page
Why I Decided to Use My Own URL
I needed a way to easily remember the URL for my Amazon author page, because as I was out in both the real world and the virtual one, I wanted to be able to easily share the information without needing to look it up. Plus, I’ve got big plans to create a new business card that would of course include a simple link to my books.
What I Did Wrong
The first time I set up a dedicated URL, I used TINYURL.com, a service that is basically a link-shortener with the ability to customize the link. So, I used one that looked like: tinyurl.com/angieatkinson.
Well, that was all well and good, until I started using the damn thing all over the place, including inside of my own Kindle ebooks, and then one day, I went to click on one of the links I had left around the ‘net and BOOM!
No more link. It went to some dead page on the TINYURL site.
How I Made It Right
After that, I realized I needed to be just a little bit less lazy if I was going to come up with a long-term solution to this problem. So, I bought myself a new URL for like $8 and simply set up a URL Redirect through my hosting service.
So now, my readers can find all of my Amazon.com books and my author profile through my new URL: BooksAngieWrote.com. Don’t you love it? 😉
How to Set Up Your Own URL Redirect to Your Amazon Author Page
1. Choose and purchase the domain you want, if you don’t already have one. I use Namecheap to buy all of mine, and I also use their hosting services.
2. Sign into your hosting account or sign up for one. Then, visit the area where you can manage your domains and update the URL settings and host records as directed by your host.
OnlineWritingPro Tips for Success
- You can set up URL forwarding to point your domain (e.g. http://yourdomain.com) You could even choose a sub-domain (e.g. http://subdomain.yourdomain.com) to any destination page of your choice (e.g. http://yourauthorpageonamazon.com).
- It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes for the URL forwarding to become effective.
- If you need extra host-specific information, try Googling your host name and the question (e.g. “Namecheap how to set up a URL redirect”)
