I recently put a book up on Amazon. Super excited. Of course, I wanted to tell the world about my baby; so I fired up Twitter and got the URL from Amazon—but then heard metal grinding against metal in my head, because this was not going to work.
The default URL looks like this:
What a nightmare. Whenever people see a huge block of text, most of them think, Too long, didn’t read. Which is why you see TL;DR at the bottom of so many posts on places like Reddit. People don’t have time for all that text online; they want a short summary instead. It’s just human nature.
Nobody wants to scare off potential readers. What writers need is a TL;DR for URLs. And then I saw something one day that would change my life forever. (OK, not really, but I found something cool.)
I was browsing Twitter, and saw some writers I follow with posts linking to their current books. The links were unique, not those million character links you get by going to a default page on Amazon.
Here’s an example:
Getbook.at/risengods. Simple. Elegant.
How’d she do that? After some searching, I found the solution. Easy to use, it’s a good resource for all writers who want to create custom, short URLs for linking to their books on social media.
It’s called Booklinker, and can be found at http://www.booklinker.net/.
You need to create an account, but it’s simple and quick. Just give them your email, and make a password. Easy peasy. Once logged in, you simply paste the default URL for your book from Amazon. Hit the button for “Create Universal Link,” and you get a short, simple URL like the one below.
The only downside is it only works for books on Amazon. But it’s a start for independent authors who are gearing up their social media campaigns. It’s about marketing, people. Brand, brand, brand. Every little thing helps—even “TL;DR” URLs for books on Amazon.
Is there anything else out there for Kobo, etc? If I find anything, I’ll make another post to let you all know. And if any of you have a lock on other cool tools like this, please leave a note in the comments.
In the meantime, keep writing.
jeffsilvey.com 
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