Amazon Author Central and fame by search engine

Aaron Shepard (Aiming at Amazon) just posted to his blog that Amazon is discontinuing its “Amazon Connect” service, which allows authors with “verified” books to post blog entries on their book pages, send automatic notifications to customers who have bought their books (who are known only to Amazon), and otherwise post relevant information for their fans/readers.

I won’t get into Aaron’s complaints because I never jump on the “crucify evil Amazon” bandwagon, being disinclined to bite the hand that direct-deposits money into my bank account twice a month. (I did write them about the recent “censorship” flap, got a nice reply, and that’s all fixed now.) I’m sort of tossing my hands up because I just managed to get accepted into Amazon Connect–and now it’s being discontinued! (story of my life…no, really! Either things get cancelled/dc’d the second I sign up, or–this happens a lot, too–I’m in the beta version/trial run/first attempt of something really new. The second pattern can be kind of fun, actually.)

Aaron said that authors are now being directed to the brand new “Author Central” beta service. I’d e-mailed Amazon a couple of times about getting an “Author Page” and never heard back, but this interface is new. So, I went over there to sign up.

The interface verified my name, and then popped up a list of seven books associated with it and asked me to select the ones I wrote. Well…I only wrote one of them, Mortal Touch.

The other six are all books in which I am cited, quoted or mentioned by name, prominently enough that Amazon’s search engines picked it up. Four of them, I knew about. The other two are a surprise. I’ll have to check those out and see how I got in them! I sure was amazed to see how much space Arlene Russo gave me in Vampire Nation! I already knew how much comes up (yowsers) when I Google my names (both Inanna Arthen and Vyrdolak–and by the way, if you’ve never Googled your own name, you definitely should, and often, because it’s a sure bet that other people will). But the way Amazon is indexing names now is something new.

My registration for Author Central is complete and now, I’m told, “activation” is “in progress” and my Author Page is being “built.” We shall see…! (Authors reading this: looks like anyone can sign up for Author Central, unlike “Amazon Connect” which was a bitch to join. Give it a try!)