GeoRiot is a free tool that may be useful to those of you who are marketing Amazon Kindle e-books.
I’m going to explain it simply because not everyone will be familiar with the basic concepts.
Amazon stores are country specific i.e. those of us living in Britain shop through Amazon.co.uk, those in the US buy through Amazon.com and there are also geographic specific sites for France, India, Germany and many more.
Most e-book marketing is global via the internet, using blog posts, Facebook, newsletters, paid-for adverts etc. Authors using these methods will endeavour to provide readers with a direct link to the Amazon page for the e-book being promoted.
However, unless the author provides the individual link for each geographical Amazon site, there will be users somewhere in the world who don’t reach their ‘home’ Amazon site and, if they want to buy the book, will have to navigate there by themselves. Many of them won’t bother. When the link provided doesn’t take them where they want to go, they’ll click on to something else instead.
But it looks clumsy and messy to list around a dozen Amazon links every time you mention your book on the web.
GeoRiot creates a single web address for an Amazon product. This address will always take the user directly to his ‘home’ Amazon site. If the link is clicked in the UK then it will route the user to Amazon.co.uk, if the link is clicked in the US then it will route the user to Amazon.com and so on.
Here’s an example. When advertising Kindle Direct Publishing for Absolute Beginners I could list each geographical link:
For buyers in the UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kindle-Direct-Publishing-Absolute-Beginners-ebook/dp/B00IJFG1W4/
For buyers in the US: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Direct-Publishing-Absolute-Beginners-ebook/dp/B00IJFG1W4/
For buyers in Australia: http://www.amazon.com.au/Kindle-Direct-Publishing-Absolute-Beginners-ebook/dp/B00IJFG1W4/
etc. etc.
Or I can use just one global link provided by GeoRiot: http://georiot.co/40oj
I think it looks much more professional to provide a single link.
GeoRiot provide this service for free unless you are an Amazon affiliate and then they take a small percentage of your affiliate earnings. For more details on how this payment system works see the GeoRiot website and Nick Daws’ comprehensive blog post where he goes into this and the mechanics of GeoRiot in much more detail than I have.
That’s it – I hope I haven’t blinded any of you with science!
Sally Jenkins 
#1 by Amanda Martin (writermummy) on April 17, 2014 - 3:48 pm
Sounds brilliant, especially for freebie promotions (and I happen to have one running this weekend…)
#2 by Sally Jenkins on April 17, 2014 - 6:53 pm
Hope it comes in useful for you, Amanda. And good luck with the promotion! This Facebook group is all about promoting free & discounted books: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DebbieYoungKindleFun/
#3 by Ian Smith on April 17, 2014 - 4:30 pm
Sally
Many thanks for highlighting this. I’m a member of some international groups who are largely US-based, so their amazon links are all to the .com site and I have to log on to the .co.uk site and search for the book.
#4 by Sally Jenkins on April 17, 2014 - 6:54 pm
It is annoying when you have to do that, isn’t Ian?
#5 by Linda on April 17, 2014 - 4:35 pm
A very sensible idea. I’ve often clicked on a link to a book and been puzzled by the price being in dollars until I realise I’m on the American or Australian site. And it is a bit of a faff to then look for the same book on the UK site.
#6 by Sally Jenkins on April 17, 2014 - 6:55 pm
Yes, Linda, it’s easy to see how potential buyers can be quickly put off bothering to buy a book because it’s just too much hassle.
#7 by swanview on April 17, 2014 - 4:40 pm
Sounds very useful. Thank you Sally
#8 by Sally Jenkins on April 17, 2014 - 6:56 pm
Hope it comes in useful, Swanview.
#9 by Wendy Clarke on April 18, 2014 - 7:20 am
Another post to bookmark, Sally – you are a wealth of useful information!
#10 by Sally Jenkins on April 20, 2014 - 7:42 pm
I try to be, Wendy!
#11 by Nick Daws (@nickdaws) on April 19, 2014 - 3:40 pm
Thanks for linking to my post, Sally. It’s worth adding that GeoRiot has some other useful features as well. For example, you can get detailed stats about how many people are clicking on your links and where they are from. From GeoRiot I discovered that more Americans were clicking on my links than Brits which (being a Brit myself) quite surprised me. And, of course, you can have GeoRiot incorporate your Amazon affiliate code/s if you like. If you are an affiliate with both the UK and US Amazon sites, for example, GeoRiot will attach the appropriate code according to where your visitor is from.
#12 by Sally Jenkins on April 20, 2014 - 7:44 pm
Thanks for the additional info, Nick. As I say in my post – it really is worth having a look at Nick’s blog post on GeoRiot, he’s gone into it in much more detail than me.
#13 by hilarycustancegreen on April 23, 2014 - 9:57 pm
That’s brilliant and very clear.
#14 by Sally Jenkins on April 24, 2014 - 7:24 am
Glad it was understandable, Hilary! It’s always difficult to know how ‘technical’ people are.