I'm very pleased to welcome novelist and blogger Jeri Walker-Bickett to Learning Curve in my first ever Guest Post!
Jeri is working hard on her forthcoming novel, Lost Girl Road, a ghost story set in the woods of northwest Montana. A July 4th prank
leads to a series of shocking and regrettable events when a
13-year-old girl goes missing and her remains are never found. Nearly 30
years later, cousins spin campfire stories about a mountain man,
Bigfoot, and the girl’s charm bracelet. Her restless spirit lingers.
What does she want? Who’s to blame?
At the same time that Jeri's Guest Post is appearing here, Jeri's review of my thriller goes up on her blog. Thank you, Jeri.
At the same time that Jeri's Guest Post is appearing here, Jeri's review of my thriller goes up on her blog. Thank you, Jeri.
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I would like
to thank Larry Crane for the chance to write a guest post for his blog. I made
his acquaintance after deciding to post a review of his novel A Bridge to Treachery on my blog. He
proposed the topic of Amazon Discussion Forums as an area in need of helpful
information. The time it took to research and write this post certainly
enlightened me and I hope it will do the same for you as well. Let’s learn
together!
Numerous
forums on Amazon buzz with customer discussion and feedback. Such activity
presents a great way for authors to connect with potential readers and
reviewers in their genre. However, access to the boards is not a
straight-forward affair as Amazon’s main page does not contain a link to its
forum (which lacks a homepage).
How do I find Amazon’s discussion
forums?
Chances are
you’ve stumbled across forums while visiting product pages where related
discussion appears at the bottom. Or perhaps you’ve commented directly on a
product review. In reality, most consumers would prefer to browse topic lists
to find interesting threads to participate.
The original
discussion board can be found at http://bit.ly/Q6TFQL and it functions as the home page
which Amazon’s current forum lacks. It provides a search box for all topics as
well as a link to Amazon’s guidelines for discussion participation. The
affiliated Facebook group “Amazon Reviewers” can be found here: http://on.fb.me/Rl7PZ5.
A Google
search on “Amazon Discussion Forums” will bring up links to the most popular
boards. The Kindle discussion boards are undoubtedly a solid starting place for
authors and readers to connect: http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle.
How to search forums?
The default
option listed on the side of the discussion screen is to search only within
that forum, but the box can be unchecked to enable a search of all customer discussions.
A few tips to get better search results:
·
Use
double quotes around words to search for phrases: “fiction writers”
·
Place
a plus sign (+) in front of words that MUST appear in your results: Top 100
Books +Steinbeck
·
Place
a minus sign (-) in front of words that MUST NOT appear in your results: Top
100 Books -Free
How to follow discussions?
Discussions
can be tracked through email or RSS feed. Subscribing via email to an extremely
active feed will result in an overflow of email to your inbox. A better way is
to subscribe via the topic’s RSS Feed. If you are unfamiliar with using RSS
Readers, I’ve written a post I wrote on the topic: http://bit.ly/PCqJPz
Who can post?
While all
visitors to Amazon can read posts in the discussion forums, only actual
customers can make comments so long as their account is in good-standing.
What can and can’t be posted?
It should go
without saying, but using Amazon’s discussion boards to try to sell your book
or otherwise promote yourself in blatant ways goes against their guidelines.
Take the opportunity to connect with others based on your common interests and
expertise.
Follow this
link to their Customer Discussion Guidelines: http://amzn.to/OP3lvu
Share the blog love and share this on
your favorite social media websites!
This post is
only the tip of the iceberg as far as participating in Amazon’s discussion
boards is concerned.
As my knowledge grows, I might someday post a related
series on my blog: JeriWB What do I know? (http://jeriwb.com).
4 comments:
This is great and very timely. I am (finally) in the process of working through publishing an ebook of my short stories as an ebook. Now I know how to do this and how to direct people. Thank you.
Hi Susan - Glad the post was helpful. eBook promotion and marketing is often an exercise in learning something new.
Since writing this post for you, I've started to add discussion threads on Amazon and GoodReads to the books I'm posting reviews for. I'm much more conscious of the discussion forums now.
This is a great post! Thanks Larry and Jeri. I have been intimidated and blown away by the Amazon forums and have no idea how to maneuver around there. I stop going there because I can't find anything.
It's also hard to figure out how to connect with readers without pushing yourself or book on them. I'll have to work on both if I find the time.
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