#AUTHORS beware of inconsistency when publishing your books.

Posted on by Chris The Story Reading Ape

In my travels through various online ebook outlets and Goodreads, I have noticed more and more instances of some potential sales losing tendencies.

Author name inconsistency when publishing or listing books.

When uploading your books and details, please ensure that your authors name is always EXACTLY the same across ALL your books, unless you intended to reinvent yourself.

If you don’t, not all your books will show up under your name!

In the case of Goodreads, you may find some of  your books listed on another author(s) page(s).

In the case of Amazon, they will appear under a general list, with a seemingly different author’s name, and will not be included with your authors page(s) – unless you have claimed them as yours – especially if you have these on Amazon UK & USA (recommended minimum author pages properly completed)

Let me give you some examples using my own name:

C. GRAHAM

C GRAHAM (Note – only the period is missing)

CHRIS GRAHAM

CHRISTOPHER GRAHAM

So if there are four books published, each with my name recorded differently as above, you can see what will happen.

Take a few minutes out of your busy schedule and check that you have been consistent, not only on Goodreads and Amazon, but also any other online outlet you have used.

Another trend I’ve noted (with despair):

When authors are promoting their books on their blogs, or sending them to me for promoting, they give only the Amazon UK or USA links, forgetting that the internet is literally World Wide.

Give ALL the relevant links, or the universal link that will take the interested reader to their local Amazon Store.

If you don’t know where else your books are being displayed, go to the bottom of the Amazon page, see all the areas listed, then go to those sites and check.

Finally – someone throw that heckler out please – thank you.

If your book(s) are not being shown in an Amazon area you feel it should be, e.g., Australia, then contact Amazon and request it be displayed there.

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NOTE: This post was previously published on 27th June 2014, but the message is still very much valid.

19 thoughts on “#AUTHORS beware of inconsistency when publishing your books.”

  3. In the library cataloguing world (from which I’ve recently retired), there is a concept called Authority Control, meaning one “official” form of an author’s name, never mind how many variations appear on their published works. It’s a big thing, but mostly in libraries. Wikipedia’s “disambiguations” have the same idea.

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    • Unfortunately, Amazon, Smashwords, B&N, Goodreads, etc, rely on Computer Programmes to record details – and computer programmes, being based on mathematics, take each variation as different and separate entry.
      Authors need to claim their books in order to have them show up on their author pages…

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