Our Best Examples of Amazon Author Pages
JANUARY 2023 UPDATE: If you have found this column, you also will want to read this major 2023 update.
In my last column for Front Edge Publishing, I discussed making the most of your Amazon Author page. I’m hoping you took my advice to heart. If not, today’s examples may inspire you to belly up to your laptop and make the necessary updates to your own author page.
Here’s why you should. Let’s say you are lucky enough to get a potential Amazon reader to your book’s homepage. That’s great! They are an interested audience of one. Now, like any good friendship, they want to know more about the person who wrote this book. They see your name highlighted in Amazon blue. Don’t disappoint them with just more stock photos of your book! Engage them. Invite them. Encourage them. Today’s readers want to have a relationship with their authors, even if it just a cyber connection. Give them what they want, provide them with the insights they crave.
Authors with Great Amazon Presence
Over the past week, I looked at the Amazon Author Pages of writers we have published over the last 11 years, since our founding in . Right away, I spotted some great examples that we all should look over—and share with others as helpful models.
One of our authors who is doing a great job with her Amazon Author Page is Debra B. Darvick. The first thing we notice is that Debra offers us two author photos, one more casual than the other. Debra is not a frequent blogger, but she has connected her ongoing columns within ReadTheSpirit magazine to her Author Page display. Debra has written three books—all lined up on her page as options for readers. Debra also uses the space provided for an author bio to engage readers as friends in the great adventure of reading. Her bio begins:
An armful of books is one of the most delicious feelings I can imagine. Adventure, wisdom, mystery, all nestled in the crook of one arm, the crease in my elbow grins in anticipation. I was one of those luckynerdy kids who was happiest tucked away in my room, stomach to the mattress, a book propped against my pillow. The world fell away, leaving me free to enter the world of whatever author I was traipsing after. Little surprise that I went from reading words to writing them.
Kurt Kolka, author of FEP’s Bullying is No Laughing Matter has a great author photo on his Amazon page. Notice that he’s pictured in a fun location and he’s holding a newspaper comic page—both clues to Kurt’s book and his career as a comic strip writer and illustrator.
David Crumm Media, an imprint of Front Edge Publishing has published three books by author Rodney Curtis. Rodney is doing a great job on his Amazon Author Page. He has an engaging and friendly photo of himself. The four books he has written are shown and linked correctly. He has also linked his online columns to automatically appear! If you scroll down to where his books are individually listed you’ll see that they each have been reviewed and they each have a five star rating. It would be great if there were even more reviews, but overall, Rodney is doing a terrific job keeping his page updated.
Robert Pasick, author of David Crumm Media’s Conversations with My Old Dog has really taken full advantage of Amazon’s Author page options. He has a great author photo. He has linked his blog posts—and they are current. He has even posted a video of himself giving a lecture. His books are all listed and most have several favorable reviews.
The Women of Wisdom is a non-profit organization that brings together people from different faith traditions, ethnicities races, and cultures in an atmosphere of safety and respect. They sponsor educational and community service projects—and have collectively published two editions of their book, Friendship & Faith. Wisdom’s Amazon Author Page includes a group photo and both editions of their book. They have linked their blog and it is current and up to date.
Struck by Hope is the first book by Jeanine Patten-Coble, a breast cancer survivor who has dedicated her life to treating the families of breast cancer patients/survivors to a week long vacation with others who are also going through treatment or have completed their treatment. Jeanine has not yet claimed her author page, but she has done a great job getting reviews for Struck by Hope, including editorial reviews.
So, have these examples inspired you? I hope that they have. Your author page can be a key marketing component in helping you to sell more books, and that’s what we all want, isn’t it? Next week I’ll show some examples of our authors who are doing it all wrong. Just kidding, but I hope the scare helps inspire you to move along and brush up your page before I change my mind.