ReaderLinks - The author's best friend

Notify me when ReaderLinks launches!

One tool to rule them all.

Marketing tools

Track Amazon Sales
Track Promotions
Automate Tweets

Publishing tools

Manage Reader Teams
Track Tasks Per Book
Track Tasks Overall

Link tracking

Track Clicks Per Book
Country-Specific Links
Automatic Common URLs

Click each tab for more information

"Amazon KDP's reporting is a mess. I'd love to see my sales in an easy-to-read format."

The ReaderLinks bookmarklet lets you pull your reports into ReaderLinks where you can see sales for today, yesterday and the last 30 days. We'll break down the sales per book for you, including pages read and free downloads. Oh, and because of our robust link tools we're able to show you click data on the same graph. That means you can see which of your links are driving sales and which ones aren't!

Automatically update your Amazon KDP stats every 20 minutes.
Get an overall picture of today's sales, free downloads, and page reads.
Each book gets its own statistics as a breakdown as well!

"I have a new book coming out and now I need to make dozens of new trackable links.

We created Core Links for just this reason! Core Links are links that must be made for every book you publish (i.e. a back-matter link to your newsletter sign-up page). Simply enter some basic info on the settings page and every time you add a book to ReaderLinks you'll get a bundle of useful pre-made links instantly added for that book! Of course, every new link requires a way to track performance so you can also see what's working and what isn't. Some authors use bit.ly, but that won't allow you to track performance per book. With ReaderLinks you can create a customer-friendly link that directs them based on their country. You can even make all of your links use your own domain name by using the ReaderLinks plug-in!

Track all of your links on the home page for a 30 day overall picture.
Get detailed click-tracking per book, too.
Change your links on the fly without having to republish them in the wild! Yes, really.

"There are so many tasks to do for every book! I keep forgetting about important stuff that I did for my last book."

Yeah, there are 1000 tasks for every book launch. Stop reinventing the wheel every time you launch a new book! Use our Core Task feature to identify to-dos that always need to get done, no matter what. Carve out time with your editor, give your cover artist the warning she needs to ramp up. If you know you'll have to do this task every time you launch a book then make it a Core Task and never worry about forgetting it again!

Book Calendar to track the schedule for one book.
Master Calendar to track the schedule for all of your books.
Core Tasks allow you to create common tasks just once and apply them to all future books.
Core Tasks allow you to make a To-Do list that doesn't need to be done on a certain date.

"With all of the promo sites out there, I wish there was a way to track my money and efforts better."

ReaderLinks provides a Promo Journal to help you track what you've done, where you've promoted, how much you spent, what worked and what didn't work. You can rank the promo sites you've spent money on so you can build on success. Use the journal to remind yourself who your point-of-contact was at BookBub, or who that writer was who wanted to do a boxed set with you. The Promo Journal ties in with the Calendar feature so ReaderLinks will be the only tool you need to see where you've been and what's next.

Rate the sites where you promote.
Track what works and what doesn't work. Build on success!
Integrates with Calendar to make it easier to keep your entries up to date.

"I love my team of readers. They give me great tips when I share Advanced Reader Copies. They also help me with reviews when they're done! But, wow, what a pain to manage this project."

The ReaderLinks Reader Team Management tool is the first of its kind. It takes the headaches out of managing a team of beta readers. You can use it to communicate clearly, never miss a mistake, track reader reviews and make the whole project an opportunity to bond with fans. The tool also helps you spot which readers do what you ask of them and which ones drop the ball.

Easily invite people to join.
See all of the project's info in one place and act on it right then and there. No more cross-checking Excel!
Track the online reviews you get from the team.
Accept the readers who help you, reject the readers who just want free stuff.

"I know Twitter is useful to authors, but I'm not seeing the results I want yet. And I can't spend all day messing with it anyway!"

Success in Twitter comes from three things under your control. One, only post quality tweets. Two, post quality tweets often. Three, stop posting tweets when they stop doing well. Because ReaderLinks allows you to track the performance of links you can combine the link tool with the Twitter tool and automate your most engaging tweets. Send tweets on a regular basis (from every one hour to every 12 hours). And to make it easier to organize the top-performers, we give you the ability to create tweet categories. Now you can assign a tweet to a category like “Boxed set #1 Christmas 2017 tweets”. Then you can activate or pause the tweets in that category as you please.

Automatically send your best tweets.
Organize tweets in categories to help manage your Twitter campaigns.
Focus on what works by keeping an eye on which tweets are getting engagement.

Notify me when ReaderLinks launches!

*Please review the End User License Agreement (EULA) for restrictions.

Notify me when ReaderLinks launches!

*Please review the End User License Agreement (EULA) for restrictions.

Frequently Asked Questions

. Who is The Author Helper?
We’re authors, just like you. We wanted something like ReaderLinks for a long time and so we created it. Now that we’ve been using it for a while, we thought you’d benefit from it, too. After all, it’s our goal at The Author Helper to help authors help themselves!

How does ReaderLinks work?
We're a subscription service that provides a suite of tools for tracking your marketing efforts. This suite includes link tracking, Reader Team management, automated Tweets and Promotion Tracking to see which promotional sites have done well for you and your book sales. See readerlinks.com for more detailed information. If you have any questions not covered here, let us know at support@readerlinks.com or submit a support request.

Is my credit card data safe?
We don't store any credit card information on our site. This is stored by Stripe and gives us only access to bill your subscription, allow you to update your credit card information, and to show you the last 4 digits on the card you used.

How do you handle international billing?
All subscriptions are processed in U.S. dollars.

Is my data safe?
We run our servers with SSL using the Facebook log-in. The data we store consists of data that can be found about the author on the Internet with the exception of your Amazon KDP stats (if you choose to store them with us by using the KDP Tool) and potentially your email address if you give us one that you do not otherwise make public. By using this system you recognize that this data is stored at your own risk.

For our Twitter Tool we store the API key, secret, token, token secret information. The user recognizes that this tool is used at your own risk.

For our Reader Team tool you will be communicating with readers about your book. The communications are not secure so should be used to talk about issues with the book only.

So how exactly does the subscription plan work?
Our monthly rate is charged to the credit card you put on file. The rate allows you access to all of ReaderLinks' services. You can cancel at any time. You'll be able to access your account until the end of your billing cycle.

How do I cancel my account?
In the ReaderLinks tool, click on Account Settings and click on Cancel Subscription.

What happens to my data when I cancel my account?
If you cancel your account, you will still have full access to the system until the expiration date of your subscription's billing cycle and all of your current links will still function until your account expires. Also, for your convenience, your data will remain on our system for a period of 1 year in case you wish to reactivate at a future date.

How do I change the currency displayed in ReaderLinks?
Go to Account Settings and selecting the currency type you wish to use.

What is a Reader Team?
Many authors are recruiting readers to read their book before it even comes out. We call them Reader Teams. This is an extra layer of peace-of-mind that you're releasing a professional product. But managing a Reader Team can be, well, a mess. Our team management tool lets you guide your readers through the process easily. You'll get clear feedback for every chapter of your book. We make it easy for readers to check and be sure that they're not reporting a known issue. We also provide a simple way for you to schedule the project so everyone comes out happy and you come out with a shined book.

What is a Core Link?
Core Links are links that you use in the promotion of every single book. For example, we all make links to put in the back of our books that ask people to review our books, or sign up for our newsletter or buy the next book in the series. Right? Instead of making a new link every time, Core Links allows you to make the link once. Every time you create a new book record in ReaderLinks that Core Link will be there! It saves time and best of all this means you don't have to republish if you have the wrong links in your books! That's right. If you need to update the urls in your published books, just head into ReaderLinks and edit the incorrect link and make it go to where you want it to go.

What is a Core task?
A Core task works much the same way a Core Link does. If you have tasks that you must do for every book, then create a Core Task for it. Now every time you create a new book record in ReaderLinks, that task will be there for you to assign a date. No more forgetting to contact the editor in time, or launching a Goodreads contest for the softcover. Now that task will be waiting for you when you're getting the new book ready.

How does the small Wordpress plug-in work?
It works off of your own self-hosted WordPress site (sorry, it does not work on WordPress.com because WordPress.com doesn’t allow the installation of 3rd-party plugins). It’s just like having any other WordPress plugin installed on your setup. The plug-in allows you to use your own domain name in all of your marketing links. For instance, you can have a url of http://benjaminbunny.com/books/48 to send your potential customer to your Amazon Author page from the back of your book! Friendlier urls are a proven way to increase clicks.

I already use The Author Helper WordPress plug-in. Can I still use it?
The Author Helper WordPress plug-in is no longer supported. You may still use it, if you wish, but note that it's a completely different service than ReaderLinks. They are two separate entities.

We advise you to update to the ReaderLinks Wordpress plug-in. It's smaller and faster and integrates with ReaderLinks well. To install it, click on the Settings icon on ReaderLinks and select 'ReaderLinks Plugins'. Follow the instructions to export your data from your current plug-in to the new one. Be aware that importing your data will overwrite all book, link and calendar data that you've entered in ReaderLinks. For this reason, we advise you do this step right after you fill out the settings page (the page you were taken to when you first signed in).

I want to simplify my urls so they use my website domain, but I don't use WordPress. Do I have an option?
You do! Use our PHP option. Click on the Settings icon in ReaderLinks and select 'ReaderLinks Plugins'. Be aware that this is a task that requires work. If it seems too complex for you we advise you to hire someone to help you.

Why am I seeing a bunch of hits immediately upon posting a link to Twitter and some other sites?
This could be for a few reasons, actually. The service you’re using may create a secondary (shortened) URL to fit their service model. In so doing, they may call back out to your link, causing additional hits. Many people use auto-retweeting services. If your Twitter account happens to be in their retweet network, you’ll get a bunch of instant tweets, each of which will register as a hit since Twitter will very the link via a server check. There are also services that use server-side “robots” to check links. This may range from one click to many clicks over the initial release of your link. The good news is that you’ll see these only at the launch of your link. After that it will settle down into a normal pattern of data collection.

Why is my sales revenue data showing activity but the summary of pages/sales/downloads all show zero?
We pull the data directly from Amazon so what you see is accurate. One of the reasons for seeing inconsistent data like this is Amazon's reporting methods. While we don't have any insight into how they crunch their numbers it does appear that there can be a delay in reporting certain data. This is likely due to things like refunds, international transactions or error correction. This means that, in some cases some sales will take a couple of days to appear correctly in Amazon's KDP reports and, consequently, our reports.

Something looks broken. What should I do?
It may sound silly but first try to refresh the page. If you're not sure if it's broken please watch the accompanying video tutorial. There may be a step that you're missing. If none of this works, please contact us at support@readerlinks.com.

Do you take feature requests?
We love to hear from our customers! We're always looking for ideas about how to make our lives as authors easier. More time writing, less time futzing, right? If you think you have an idea that would fit well in the ReaderLinks suite of tools, let us know. We can't guarantee we'll do it. We're a small team. But we'll consider every idea. That's a promise.

Why don't you take PayPal?
PayPal is so universal that we considered using it. We decided against it for these reasons:

Privacy: PayPal allows us to see your name and address. In our experience, people don't like to share this information.
Terms: PayPal has you forever once they have you. There would be no way for us to move to another provider should their services no longer prove adequate.
History: PayPal has been known to treat their customers unfairly. Frozen funds, misidentified fraud and other reports of heavy-handed behavior gets covered in the press too often for our tastes.

Stripe appears to be doing their best to support their customers, both vendors and consumers. They're a PCI Service Provider Level 1 (More Information) so they adhere to the strictest security measures possible.

What if you haven't answered my question or if I have support issues?
You can write us at support@readerlinks.com or you can join our closed Facebook Group. It's open to all subscribers to the ReaderLinks service. You can also open a ticket at readerlinks.supportsystem.com.

Do you support pen names?
We do! You can use as many pen names as you want and get all of the features you enjoy with your primary account. Please note: We require you to set up a separate subscription for this service. You'll be able to access all of your pen names on one screen by selecting which pen name you want to view. Simply go to the drop-down on the top right (the one that looks like a person) and select the pen name you want to work with.

My Amazon sales data is completely off! What's going on?
A few things could be happening here. First, please make sure you have the latest bookmarklet and the latest data from KDP. Go to the 'ReaderLinks KDP Tool' by clicking on the gear icon in the top menu. Drag the bookmarklet button onto your browser bar. Now head back to Amazon's KDP reporting page. It must be that specific page where you see the KDP graph. Click on the bookmarklet that you dragged into your browser bar. Wait for the success message to pop up, head back to your ReaderLinks account and click on the Home link on the top left menu. If that doesn't work, it's possible that Amazon is currently experiencing problems with their reporting. Please wait for one hour and try again. One last thing to check only applies if you use a pen name and have multiple accounts with us. Please ensure that you are looking at the correct account's data by selecting the correct author name from the drop-down in the top menu.

What if I lose my Facebook account?
If Facebook locks you out of your account, you'll need to work with them to get it back. If that does not resolve then set up a new facebook account and contact support@readerlinks.com and we'll do what we can to help.

Privacy

. What is this Privacy Policy for?
This privacy policy is for ReaderLinks.com and served by The Author Helper, LLC and governs the privacy of its users who choose to use it.

The policy sets out the different areas where user privacy is concerned and outlines the obligations & requirements of the users, the website and website owners. Furthermore the way this website processes, stores and protects user data and information will also be detailed within this policy.

The Website
We run our servers with SSL using the Facebook log-in. The data we store consists of data that can be found about the author on the Internet with the exception of your Amazon KDP stats (if you choose to store them with us by using the KDP Tool) and potentially your email address if you give us one that you do not otherwise make public. By using this system you recognize that this data is stored at your own risk.

For our Twitter Tool we store the API key, secret, token, token secret information. The user recognizes that this tool is used at your own risk.

For our Reader Team tool you will be communicating with readers about your book. The communications are not secure so should be used to talk about issues with the book only.

Use of Cookies
This website uses cookies to better the users experience while visiting the website. Cookies are small files saved to the user's computers hard drive that track, save and store information about the user's interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server to provide the users with a tailored, anonymous experience.

Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website on to their computers hard drive they should take necessary steps within their web browsers security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors.

This website uses Google Analytics to monitor its visitors to better understand how they use it. This software is provided by Google Analytics which uses cookies to track visitor usage. The software will save a cookie to your computers hard drive in order to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website, but will not store, save or collect personal information. You can read Google's privacy policy here for further information [ http://www.google.com/privacy.html ].

Other cookies may be stored to your computers hard drive by external vendors when this website uses referral programs, sponsored links or adverts. Such cookies are used for conversion and referral tracking and typically expire after 30 days, though some may take longer. No personal information is stored, saved or collected.

Contact & Communication
Users contacting this website and/or its owners do so at their own discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own risk.

This website and its owners use any information submitted to provide you with further information about the products / services they offer or to assist you in answering any questions or queries you may have submitted. This includes using your details to subscribe you to any email newsletter program the website operates but only if this was made clear to you and your express permission was granted when submitting any form to email process. Or whereby you the consumer have previously purchased from or enquired about purchasing from the company a product or service that the email newsletter relates to. This is by no means an entire list of your user rights in regard to receiving email marketing material. Your details are not passed on to any third parties.

External Links
Although this website only looks to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised to adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. (External links are clickable text / banner / image links to other websites.)

The owners of this website cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite their best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Ads and Sponsored Links
This website may contain sponsored links and adverts. These will typically be served through our advertising partners, to whom may have detailed privacy policies relating directly to the ads they serve.

Clicking on any such ads will send you to the advertisers website through a referral program which may use cookies and will track the number of referrals sent from this website. This may include the use of cookies which may in turn be saved on your computers hard drive. Users should therefore note they click on sponsored external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.

Social Media Platforms
Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners participate on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate / engage upon them with due care and caution in regard to their own privacy and personal details. This website nor its owners will ever ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.

This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.

This website and its services requires a Facebook account for access to premium features. This website uses Facebook for authentication purposes only to ensure a seamless experience to the most users. This website does not ask for permission to post to your feed, see your friends, or request any other personally identifiable information.

Using the Twitter feature requires entry of API key, Secret Questions and Answers. These features of the Twitter api allow this website to post in your stead for convenience. No text, links or media will ever be added to tweets. No tracking of Twitter usage takes place. The user is responsible for all tweets sent through this website and absolves this website and its owners of all liability, including damage to reputation due to the contest of user's tweets.

Links Feature
This website allows users to use the readerlinks.com domain to forward customers to the site of their choice. This website anonymously tracks usage to provide the user with reporting. Reporting provides insights into number of clicks on the link and the country of origin of the link. This anonymous data is stored for a maximum of 30 days to provide historical data. The data is then deleted on a rolling basis.

This website offers a Wordpress plug-in that allows users to leverage their own domain for marketing purposes. The plug-in anonymously tracks usage to provide the user with reporting. Reporting provides insights into number of clicks on the link and the country of origin of the link.

Resources & Further Information

Facebook Privacy Policy: https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation
Google Privacy Policy: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/
Twitter Privacy Policy: https://twitter.com/privacy
Mailchimp Privacy Policy: https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/

The Author Helper, LLC
PMB 297
476 Shotwell Rd, Suite 102
Clayton, Nc 27520

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this policy or your data, please send an email to support@theauthorhelper.com

End User License Agreement

. READ CAREFULLY: This End User License Agreement (“EULA”) is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or an entity) and The Author Helper, LLC. By subscribing to the ReaderLinks service ('THE SOFTWARE') you agree to be bound by the terms of this EULA.

By means of this Website, www.readerlinks.com, The Author Helper, LLC helps authors manage their book launches, track their marketing and facilitates well-managed connections between authors and their team of readers.

GRANT OF LICENSE

YOUR MEMBERSHIP

https://readerlinks.com/readers/eula/

CLAIMS OF INFRINGEMENT

http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

DMCA Notice of Alleged Infringement ('Notice')

http://www.onlinepolicy.org/action/legpolicy/opg_v_diebold/

VERSION CHECK AND REGISTRATION

TERMINATION

CANCELLATION POLICY

COPYRIGHT

LIMITED WARRANTY

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

CHANGES TO THIS AGREEMENT