The most exciting new renouncement out of Amazon right now for authors is Author Stores (BETA). These new launch pages allow authors to build a page around their published works, giving them an easy to market single page that shows all of their works rather than having to rely on buyer finding it through search.

While a select number of authors were selected to be part of their BETA program, everyone else can sign up for Author Stores here. Amazon will email the people on that list when new slots open up and, once you get a store, you have the ability to upload your own author image, add your biography and update your bibliography (books published).

Author Stores are also eligible for Amazon Associates credits so web publishers can get credits for referring visitors to the author’s webstore. For authors, this means that it will be easier to get people to link your new webstore since webmasters get a kick-back on each sale.

A great example of the potential of the Author Store is Twilight series author Stephenie Meyer’s page. Preview Stephenie Meyer’s page here.

Coupled with Amazon Connect, Author Stores have the potential to be a very powerful marketing tool for writer to be able to connect with their readers and also to market their material.