readsouthwest.com™
A Southwest Book Store Featuring Southwest Writers
readsouthwest.com™ FAQ!
- How do I join readsouthwest ?
- Simple! Get started by going to the JOIN page and filling out the form. You will then be taken to a page where you can pay with your credit card or Paypal account. You can also choose to receive an invoice and pay by check. If you pay online you will be guided to forms that let you submit the descriptions for you and your books.
- What is a Plog and how do I use it?
- We're looking into this now and will have more information on this soon. For now, here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/arms/role/dispatch.html/ref=cm_arms_mm_dis
- Why do we have to sell through Amazon?
- We understand the many possible concerns behind this question. Our goal here is to make it easy and affordable for authors to get their information and their books out there. readsouthwest.com™ is designed to enable authors to make changes, adding books and content anytime they want. Our relationship with Amazon makes that possible in an affordable way. We do allow authors to link to any sales venue they want. See the Linking Tutorial.
- Why does Amazon sell our books for so little money?
- Amazon allows the sale of used books, and the seller can ask any price they want. We know that this can be disconcerting to our authors. We ask that you keep in mind that your books are still getting distributed, read, and discussed! Also, remember that all the books that are being sold second-hand were once bought as new books.
- Why doesn't my book cover show up?
- I have been in touch with Amazon about this. Sometimes books are listed in Amazon's "Marketplace", where anyone can resell a used book. If this is the only place your book is available, the cover might not show up. I highly recommend that you make sure your book is in the main database for Amazon. If your publisher or distributor is responsible for this, find out from them why you're not listed properly.
You can take the bull by the horns yourself and become an Amazon Advantage member. This means you can supply the books and the cover art and make sure you're showing up properly.
Book covers need to be submitted to Amazon. Cover art can be uploaded using ftp software. If your publisher or distributor are submitting books to Amazon, they should upload the cover art.
For comprehensive information on how to prepare and upload cover art, go here: www.amazon.com/images. - What is Amazon Advantage?
- If one or more of your books are only sold in Amazon's "Marketplace", you might consider becoming an Amazon Advantage member. This means you will supply Amazon with the books, and the books will show up in the main database. Then, when a viewer clicks on the BUY FROM AMAZON button on your page, the book will be added to the shopping cart. At this point, that button is useless for books that are only in the "Marketplace". Here is a useful page on Amazon about the Listing Options for getting your book listed.
- I want to join, but I'm not published yet. Can you help me?
- We can't help you get published, but one resource that you might consider is Amazon's Booksurge.
- What is my RSS feed URL?
- Go to your page on readsouthwest.com and you'll see some buttons on the right below your picture. The top one looks like this
. Click on it. Look for the web address for this page at the top of your browser. That is your RSS feed URL. Copy this address, paste it into a text program and save it somewhere that you can find later. If you decide to register your feed with RSS directories, you will be pasting this address into fields online. - How do I register my RSS feeds with RSS directories?
- Great question! It's a good idea to register your RSS feed with as many directories as you can. Surfers can find your feed in the directories and subscribe to you. Also, search engines like it a lot when you register with different feeds. Go to this page and start going down through the list of links to register your feed. If this is confusing, watch the RSS tutorial on the CD you received when you joined readsouthwest.com™.
- How do I add a link to my content?
- Great question. Let's say you want a book to have a link to another sales venue. You need two things: 1) the web address of the page you want to link to, and 2) the text you want to include the link. Here is an example from the Burning Books page on readsouthwest.com™:
Link to Perfect Lives on Small Press Distribution
Here's how you do that. Go to Article Editor. (If you don't know how, refer to the training videos.) Choose to modify the book article in question and scroll down to the bottom of the Content Section. Add a couple paragraph returns. Then type <a href="
Now type the web page address, which you can copy from the top of your browser when you go to the page you want to link to. So in this case, you would type (or paste) http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=0962776777
Then type: ">
Now you see this:
<a href="http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=0962776777">
Now type the text that will be linked, like Link to Perfect Lives on Small Press Distribution and follow that with a "closing tag" that looks like this </a> . Put it all together and you have this:
<a href="http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=0962776777">Link to Perfect Lives on Small Press Distribution </a> . Hit the SAVE button and check out your page. Try the link.
Still having problems? Please study the Linking training video.
Still having problems? Contact us for support.
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