On looking over my Amazon author’s page I noticed that the one on amazon.co.uk contains my biography, a photograph of yours truly with my guide dog Trigger (Trigger is the dashingly handsome one), while that on amazon.com has only a list of my books. I had assumed that information entered onto one author’s profile would automatically be copied, by Amazon to my other page. On querying the position Amazon advised that authors need to create author’s profiles on both sites, a fact of which I was previously unaware.

Perhaps I am the only author who has laboured under the misapprehension that the creation of a profile on Amazon automatically creates a page on both amazon.co.uk and amazon.com. Obviously this is not the case but it would be extremely useful if, on creating an Amazon author’s profile the creator was offered the option to, at the same time create pages on both Amazon sites.

Turning to the issue of Amazon book reviews, I welcome the fact that reviews posted on one Amazon site now also appear on both amazon.co.uk and amazon.com (so, for example a review of my short story, Samantha which appears on amazon.com also shows on the UK site). However the issue is clouded owing to the fact that anyone casually glancing at a page on one Amazon site will see that a particular book has x number of reviews, however if he/she scans down the page reviews on another Amazon site, for the same book may well become visible. I would suggest that the total number of reviews on all Amazon sites for a particular book should be clearly displayed without the need for the reader to scan the entire page. The number of reviews and, more importantly the comments contained therein influence reader’s decisions as to whether to purchase a particular title. I would be interested to hear what other authors and readers think?