Checklist category
Retail Listings & Buy Links
What a reader sees on every store page, and every link that takes them there. Preorder and buy links you have tested yourself, a listing audit for each major retailer, one cross-retailer check that the cover, title, contributors, description, date, price, format, and page count agree, and a record of who controls each listing so a correction goes to the right desk.
The tasks in Retail Listings & Buy Links
2 tasks, 13 steps
Create and test every purchase link
3 stepsEvery link you or anyone else sends a reader lands on a page where they can buy the right format of the right book. You have opened each one yourself, on a phone and on a computer.
CoreThree months before publication, and again on publication dayAuthor and Publisher and Website specialistYou normally do this yourself.
Audit every retailer listing
10 stepsEvery major store shows the right cover, title, contributors, description, date, price, format, and page count, with no duplicate or wrongly merged editions. You also know who controls each listing, so a correction goes to the right place.
CoreThree months before publication, in launch week, and at each later auditAuthor and PublisherSomeone else may do it. Inspect the result yourself.Metadata or distribution
Common questions
Why test on a phone separately?
Because most readers follow your links on one, and store apps intercept links in ways that can drop the format or the edition. A link that works on a laptop can open the wrong page on a phone.
From Create and test every purchase link.
What is a canonical buy link?
The one link per format that you use everywhere, so that you can change it in one place and so that you can tell what is actually being clicked.
From Create and test every purchase link.
Do I need preorder links?
Only if you are running preorders. When you are, they are the links that carry the whole campaign, and a dead one costs sales you never see.
From Create and test every purchase link.
There are a lot of stores here. Do I have to check all of them?
Check the ones that sell your formats. An audiobook listing is irrelevant if you have no audiobook, and those subtasks stay hidden unless you selected the format.
From Audit every retailer listing.
What is a duplicate edition?
The same book appearing twice on one store, often after a data change, splitting reviews and sales rank between the two records. It is common, it is fixable, and nobody fixes it unless someone reports it.
From Audit every retailer listing.
A store shows the wrong price. Who do I tell?
Usually whoever owns the feed rather than the store, because the feed will overwrite a store-side fix. Record what you reported and when, because these take weeks.
From Audit every retailer listing.