How To Copy A Link So You Can Promote Your Books Online

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If You Can't Link You Can't Sell Books

Learn how ow to copy a web page link or URL

All authors need to use Internet page addresses to promote their books, blogs, websites, social media accounts and promotions.

However, many find the task of copying and pasting an accurate URL address difficult, and fail to take advantage of what is, in fact, a very simple computer skill.

Let’s look first at what linking and Internet addresses are and do, and why they are so vital when it comes to book and author promotion.

Every page or location that you visit on the Internet has a unique address so that it can be found among billions of pages.

Can you image addressing a letter to Mary Smith, United States and expecting the postman to be able to deliver it?

That is why you need to be able to copy your Internet addresses accurately.

These addresses are called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), and you can see it in the address bar of your browser.

Some browsers truncate the address, but if you click in the address bar, you will see the full address, or URL, as is indicated in the images below by the red arrows.

For Facebook, make sure you are on your profile page. Click on your profile name next to your small image.

You are on the correct page now to copy your page address from the address bar.

Facebook copy link

For Twitter, select your profile page by clicking on your Tweets. Now you can copy your account address from the address bar.

Twitter copy link

For any general website, click on the address bar of the page you are viewing to get the correct link.

address bar and url of a website

For all the sites above, it is only a simple matter of a right click, and you can copy the full URL address and paste it in Word or a text editor to save it. They will look something like this.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/derekhainesauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Derek_Haines

Websites: http://derekhaines.ch/god-has-gone-fishing/

This method works for every site or location on the Internet, so you can copy your address for your profile pages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, Google+ or any other social media sites you use, as well as for your books on Amazon and your blog posts or website.

Go to any site you use to promote your books and just right click and copy the link in the address bar.

Now you can do a lot more

Once you have collected the addresses for the sites that you use to promote you and your books, you can send them in emails, social media posts, messages or to book promotion services.

Sometimes though, a URL can be very long like this one below on Amazon.

`https://www.amazon.com/God-Has-Gone-Fishing-Destruction-ebook/dp/B01E2GMVNQ/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0&linkCode=sl1&tag=whizbuzwp-20&linkId=8953e0fec8b8db2f8b326d977d338d2c`

Sending a long ugly link like this in an email or a Twitter or Facebook post is really not very appealing.

However, there is an easy way to make what is commonly called a short link.

There are many sites where you can make a short link form a long URL, but I will give an example by using Bit.ly, a popular free link shortening service.

Once you are registered, start by clicking, Create Bitlink. A new screen will appear.

 

Bitly short linking

Insert long link

Now you can paste your long URL link. I’ll use my long link from Amazon.

`https://www.amazon.com/God-Has-Gone-Fishing-Destruction-ebook/dp/B01E2GMVNQ/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0&linkCode=sl1&tag=whizbuzwp-20&linkId=8953e0fec8b8db2f8b326d977d338d2c`

short bitly link

My very long Amazon URL in now automatically shortened, and it is much, much better to use on social media.

However, there is one more thing you can do with your new short link. You can change it! Click on Customize.

customized bitly link

Now I have a short URL that I can keep and easily identify as the link to my book.

promote your books using short links

You can see from the image above, how the long Amazon URL is now shortened to ‘bit.ly/godhasdh’ and can be shared, copied or even edited.

If you do this for all the links that you need and use on a regular basis, you will not only save a lot of time on your book promotion, but you will be sure that the links you are sending out to the world are absolutely 100% accurate.

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Derek Haines

Derek Haines is an Australian author, living in Switzerland.

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