Why is UK Amazon Author Central different?
As I live in a country that does not have its own Amazon Kindle Store, my default store is Amazon Kindle US, so when I check my ebooks, it is always from their listings on the US store. As an author, I also naturally have my own Author Central page on Amazon, and from there I can check rankings and reviews.
But quite by accident this morning, I made a very odd discovery. I went to my KDP Dashboard and clicked on one of my ebooks, but instead of choosing the US store link, I inadvertently clicked the UK store link. What surprised me immediately was that my book’s ranking was a hell of a lot higher than it is on the US store.
Then, when I scrolled down, I noticed book reviews that I had never seen before. Now very curious, I clicked on my author name, which took me to my UK Amazon Author Central page. It looked different to the one I use on the US site, so I logged in to check. When I clicked on Customer Reviews, I had a long list of new reviews, which dated back three years!
So what is going on here with Amazon Author Central?
As far as I can tell from a little research, my US Amazon Author Central page is used on all Kindle Stores around the world, apart from Amazon UK, which has its own unique Amazon Author Central page. I must have set it up years ago, and forgotten about it, as my bio and other details were way out of date. Then, when I checked these new reviews again, I discovered that while reviews published on Amazon US are automatically added to all my US Amazon Author Central pages, including the UK, any reviews posted in the UK are not added to the US page. Why? I have no idea.
Confused? Me too.
All I can now advise is that if you are publishing on Kindle, make sure you find your UK Amazon Author Central page and either update your information or start anew if you have never assessed your page before. Then when you want to check your rankings or reviews, make sure you look at both your US and UK Amazon Author Central accounts.
Because of the oddity of Kindle UK, this also means that by promoting your book links to the US store, the links do not work for UK users. Another little pain. The best way I can find to get around this is to add links to my blogs and websites to BOTH of my Author Central pages. One for the US and one for the UK.
Well at least I understand now, I think. But it all seems so very silly that the UK store is so out of the loop.
I’m not really surprised Derek, when you consider that eBook sales via the Amazon UK site are far less than on Amazon.com. Paperback and Hard cover sales far outsell eBooks in the UK. The UK has always had trouble keeping up with the rest of the world when it comes to book sales in general. Re the sharing reviews between sites thing, whenever a review is posted on Amazon.com, it only ever appears as ‘reviewed on Amazon.com’.
;)
Oddly enough, Jack, after my stumble onto Amazon UK, I checked my ebook sales for this month, and lo and behold!! I had more sales in the UK than the US.
Thanks for this helpful and interesting post. I think that we authors should lobby Amazon to ensure that reviews received in one country automatically show up on all Amazon sites. I for one will certainly be making this point to the great god Amazon. Kevin
I agree, Kevin. Especially as I have just noticed a review for one of my books on the Australian Kindle Store, which was also not shared on other Kindle sites. It was lucky I checked, as it was a delightful review. Just a pity no one outside of Australia will get to see it. :(