Like Doctor Leonard Hofstadter, I Cannot Catch a Break

The third-party I used for links for readers to be able to access their respective Amazon stores for one of my books shut down at the end of January. No warning whatsoever. *sigh*

I didn't discover the  problem until I started to update the links on my websites on Friday.

Amazon has now realized we need one link for their multiple stores. Especially since the company insists on making indie books available in all the stores. Duh!

So it's going to cut into my writing time this week to figure out and set up the new links. A bad week since I also planned to finish up the taxes.

I hadn't touched any of the ice cream, leftover from before Christmas, in our freezer until this weekend when I discovered the link issue. Unfortunately, GK didn't eat off of it while he was on leave. Maybe I need to switch to something healthier. Like oatmeal.

Lots and lots of oatmeal.

So much better than rabbits and mice.

Lessons Learned - Why You Need Links in Your E-Book

A few weeks ago, I picked up Tatooine Ghost as a Kindle Daily Deal. I used to inhale Star Wars novels like cocaine before GK was born. So needless to say, this novel was one of many released during the 21st century that I haven't read.

Honestly, I can say this is one of the better conversions I've seen of a novel that was originally in hardcover. I only noticed one typo. So kudos to Random House for one small grace. Plus, there was a short story starring Chewie, his wife and son. *grin*

But there were some other things that really annoyed me, and this comes under the list of "if you're indie, you probably shouldn't do this":

1) Over half of the file were samples for other Star Wars books. Seriously only 48% of the damn file was the actually novel. One or two samples I could have dealt with, but I lost count of the number of single chapters from separate novels. I felt cheated, even though I know I really wasn't.

2) There were no links to ANY of the e-books that were sampled, much less links to the zillion other Star Wars novels mentioned after the end of Tatooine Ghost. In fact, one of the sample chapters I read involved Leia, Mara and Jaina. I would have downloaded it right then if there was a 'Buy Now' link. But there wasn't.

And I've already forgotten the title of the story.

And I'm in the middle of NaNo, so I probably won't remember to look up the story in December.

See how Random House just lost a sale?

***
I understand if you're going through a distributor, direct links can be a major no-no. But if you're uploading your books directly to Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, etc., you have no reason not to have the links for those particular stores for all of your books. (And you should ALWAYS have a "Additional Books by" section at the end of your e-book!)

For those of you using a central distributor and you can't add specific buy links to your e-book files, make sure you have a link to your website where you have...wait for it...buy links to all the online stores that carry your books!

This is a simple little solution to not lose a sale.

Have I always done this? No. I'm going through my early releases and rectifying this little problem. It means a separate file and conversion for each store, and it's a bit of a pain, but I know the end result will be soooo worth it!