What to put in your link in bio when you're launching a book

Say you're a debut novelist with 3,000 followers and a book out in six weeks. Someone sees your post about the cover reveal, taps your bio link, and finds a link to your old blog, a link to Goodreads and a link to a bookshop's homepage. They wanted to preorder. They leave.

A book launch asks your bio link to do different jobs at different times. This post walks through what to put there before release, on release day and in the weeks after.

What should the first link be before your book comes out?

Make it the preorder link, and only one. Put a single button at the top, labelled with the action ("Preorder the book"), and send it to the retailer you most want sales from.

Retailers do not treat preorders the same way. BookBub's roundup of author experiences reports that Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo credit a preorder to the release date as well as the day it was placed, while on Amazon preorders placed outside release week do not count toward its bestseller rankings. That is what authors told BookBub, and retailers change their rules, so check the current terms for the shop you care about. If you are published by a house, ask your publicist which retailer matters most to them.

If you want to offer several shops, put the main one first and the rest on a second button labelled "Other stores". Readers who prefer an independent bookshop will look for it.

Should you use Bookshop.org links?

You can, and it pays you a little. Bookshop.org's support centre lists authors as eligible affiliates, and says affiliates earn on sales made within 48 hours of a click on their referral link. The Authors Guild describes the author commission as 10 percent of list price on top of your normal royalty, with a further 10 percent going to independent bookstores.

Two limits are worth knowing. The window is short, so the link only earns when the reader buys soon after tapping it. And the commission applies to Bookshop.org sales only. It does not help with Amazon or a local shop's own site. Treat it as one button among your stores, not the whole plan.

What else belongs on the page?

Less than you think. A launch page needs a handful of blocks, and a short page converts a reader who arrived curious. Here is a reasonable set:

• The buy button. The one described above.
• A short excerpt or first chapter. A reader who is unsure will click a sample before a store. Link to a page where it reads without a signup.
• An email signup. This is the block that outlasts the launch. Preorders end, but the readers who gave you an address will hear about book two.
• One place to follow you. Pick the platform where your readers already are.
• Events. A launch party or a bookshop reading, with the date and town, if you have one.

Leave out the full backlist, a long bio and every review quote. You can link a few of them from your site, and your bio link only needs to move a reader towards a decision.

How do you collect emails without a newsletter tool?

Start with the signup block. On Linky, the Form block takes up to 10 fields, and you can view submissions in Linky and export them as a CSV file. Ask for an email address and nothing else. Every extra field costs you signups.

Linky does not send email, so you import that CSV into whichever email tool you use, such as Substack, Buttondown or Mailchimp. Tell people what they will get, in a line above the form: "One email on release day, and one when the next book is ready." A specific promise beats "Join my newsletter".

If you already have a newsletter, grow your email list from your link in bio covers where to put the form so more readers see it.

What changes on release day and after?

Three swaps, each taking a minute.

1. Release day. Change "Preorder the book" to "Buy the book". Move the excerpt below it.
2. Launch week. If you have reviews from a trade outlet, a well-known reader or a bookshop, add one short quote under the button. One quote does more than five.
3. After the first month. The book is no longer news. Keep the buy button at the top, and move your signup form up, since a reader who liked the book will want the next one.

Set a reminder for each date. A page that still says "Preorder" a month after release tells readers you are not paying attention, and some will assume the book is not out.

Musicians face a similar timing problem around a release, and link in bio for musicians covers how they set up their pages.

A worked example: six weeks out, launch week, two months on

Take the invented debut novelist from the opening, with a book called The Salt Road (made up for this example). Six weeks out, her page has four things: a "Preorder The Salt Road" button, a "Read the first chapter" button, a signup form that promises one email on release day, and a link to her Instagram.

On release day she changes one word on the first button and adds a line of text under it with the date of her bookshop reading. In launch week she adds a single quote from a bookseller who read an early copy. She does not add anything else, and the page still has five blocks.

Two months later the buy button is still on top, but the form now says "Be first to hear about book two." The readers who joined before launch are her best audience for that email, and she asked for nothing but their address.

The pattern is small edits at set dates, not a rebuild. Most of the work is deciding in advance what each date changes.

What does a Free page look like?

A Free Linky page holds one page and five blocks, plus the header every page has. That is enough for a launch: a Link Box for the buy button, a second for the excerpt, a Form for emails, a Link Bar for your social profile and a Text block with the event details. If you want more pages or analytics, Premium is $4 a month, and every new account starts with a 14-day Premium trial.

Linky's analytics show page views and unique visitors for the past 7 days. They do not show which link was clicked, so if you want to know whether the buy button works, watch your retailer's own sales dashboard instead.

Your next step this afternoon: pick the single retailer you want sales from, build a page with the buy button, a sample and a signup form, and put it in your bio. You can start at lin.ky.