[jackz4000]

It is posted at .com, but nowhere else?  Do I have to go to each country to do that?

 

[wolfrom]

I signed up at http://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk/ and https://authorcentral.amazon.de/ and just pasted in what I could from my .com

I haven't bothered with fr, es, it, etc., because I rarely get any action from there.

 

[jewishwriter]

I tried to post at fr, de, but could not figure out the translations....to merely transfer the uk block of wordings did not work.

 

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

It is posted at .com, but nowhere else? Do I have to go to each country to do that?

I also tried to find an author's page on Amazon.ca.

 

[CoraBuhlert]

You need to separately upload your author bio, photo, etc... to Author Central at Amazon UK, DE, FR and JP. ES and IT don't have author central pages yet. The sign-up/log-in link is http://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk . Replace co.uk with de, fr or co.jp.

Unfortunately, the set-up is in the language of the respective Amazon, so have Google Translate open in parallel and copy and paste the set-up page into Google Translate, so you can see what goes where. The set-up pages are pretty similar for the various author centrals, but there are differences.

 

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

You need to separately upload your author bio, photo, etc... to Author Central at Amazon UK, DE, FR and JP. ES and IT don't have author central pages yet. The sign-up/log-in link is http://authorcentral.amazon.co.uk . Replace co.uk with de, fr or co.jp.

Unfortunately, the set-up is in the language of the respective Amazon, so have Google Translate open in parallel and copy and paste the set-up page into Google Translate, so you can see what goes where. The set-up pages are pretty similar for the various author centrals, but there are differences.

Thanks
Do you think it makes any difference to sales i.e if you're not selling any now, will it encourage at least one sale

 

[jackz4000]

I would have thought Amazon used the same on as on .com. I had a few sales in Euro so I went to see the book there and was surprised to find no author page.

 

[Mathew Reuther]

I would have thought Amazon used the same on as on .com. I had a few sales in Euro so I went to see the book there and was surprised to find no author page.

Why?

Ideally you should have translated bios, so it wouldn't make sense for it to use the other pages.

 

[CoraBuhlert]

Thanks
Do you think it makes any difference to sales i.e if you're not selling any now, will it encourage at least one sale

Well, it can't hurt. I get regular sales at Amazon UK and DE and have never yet had a single sale at FR or JP, so make of that what you will. JP was the only author page that was really difficult to set up. For while German and English are no problem and my scattered French is still good enough to set up an Amazon author page, I don't speak or read a lick of Japanese.

 

[Just Browsing]

Note that in Japan, you can only link paperback books to the Author Central, not ebooks. I went round and round and round with customer service with them for a few weeks on this. First they said they couldn't support English books. I kept saying, But you DO have English books tied to my account. Look! You have 5 pages! 55 books! They're there! Just add ONE MORE! Finally they said, no ebooks.

I can't see any point in translating your bio, though, unless you're also translating your books. If an expat in France can read my English book, I would think he/she could read the English bio as well. I don't want a bio in French that would lead someone to assume the book might also be in French.

 

[lcharnes]

I put a bilingual bio in my Amazon.fr page, but that's because I was lucky enough to find a native French speaker willing to do the translation. At least now I'm ready for Amazon Canada if they ever do their own Author Central.

For my German author page, I just put in my English bio and a note in German saying, "Translation coming soon."

I wish the non-US Author Centrals would let us fix our own book descriptions and edition linkages. I can't tell you how much time I've spent trying to get that fixed just in Canada, the UK, France and Germany. I haven't had the heart to start in on Italy or Japan yet.

 

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

I can't see any point in translating your bio, though, unless you're also translating your books. If an expat in France can read my English book, I would think he/she could read the English bio as well. I don't want a bio in French that would lead someone to assume the book might also be in French.

^^this^^

 

[martyinmaui]

I set my profile up in all of international sites where they are available and no one was more surprised than me to see sales - small, but every one counts - start coming through within 2 weeks. The forms follow the same format as Amazon US but if you really want to read it in English just look for the "translate" button at the top of the page.

 

[jackz4000]

Good stuff. My book description is in English and the book is too so I had thought the English Bio would transfer over just like the Description did. Wasn't thinking of translating anything since the book is in English and if one can't translate the Description they will never buy the book in English. Maybe Amazon can do it?

 

[Shelley K]

I know a little Spanish, German and French, so I could tweak the not quite spot-on translations of my bio I got from Google.

Not everyone buying books in English are ex-pat native speakers. Though they obviously know English if they're buying my stuff, to them it might seem a nice gesture to reach out to them in their language. I have friends who aren't native English speakers, and they like it when I speak in their languages for a change.