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[Guide] How to create a signature with links to your books
Lysmata Debelius:
There are two stages to this. Stage 1: Getting the info you'll need to make the link to your book and its cover. Stage 2: inserting this into your signature. I find it easier to do all of the following in Notepad, and then copy it across to the signature block, rather than trying to edit it in the signature block.
To get the book's URL
Open the Amazon page of the book you're linking to. Copy the URL of the book's page. Make sure you only copy the info up to the ASIN. So for example, if your book was "The Fellowship of the Ring", you'd copy only the black part of this URL and leave out the blue part: https://www.amazon.com/Fellowship-Ring-Lord-Rings-Book-ebook/dp/B002RI9THI/ref=sr_1_2_twi_kin_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538495929&sr=8-2&keywords=The+Lord+of+the+Rings+Kindle
To get the picture link
Right click on the book's image on Amazon and choose "copy image address". Depending on your browser, that might be phrased slightly differently. The Microsoft Edge browser doesn't seem to offer this option, so try another browser e.g. Chrome or Firefox :icon_cool:
Create the signature
Go to Profile > Forum Profile.
On that page, find the "Signature" field. This is where you'll be pasting the code.
Copy the following code (click on the "select" link to easily copy just the bit of code you need):
--- Code: ---
[url= ] [img] [/img] [/url]
--- End code ---
Then paste the book url after that first "=" where the x's are below:
--- Code: ---
[url= xxxxxxx ][img] [/img] [/url]
--- End code ---
Then paste the image address after the image height tag where the x's are below:
--- Code: ---
[url= booklink ][img] xxxxxxxxxx [/img] [/url]
--- End code ---
But now the image will be too large!
There's a bit just before the final ".jp" in the image address that specifies the size. For example:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41W%2BRH8kJgL._SY346_.jpg
See that blue bit? That needs to be changed to
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41W%2BRH8kJgL._SL125_.jpg
Where the "125" stands for the height in pixels. Anything up to "150" should be fine.
Just copy and the bit below and paste it before the ".jpg" end of your image address.
--- Code: ---._SL125_
--- End code ---
Make sure that every opening square bracket has a closing square bracket. Make sure that you don't change the way the brackets are nested.
For more than one book, just rinse and repeat, add the next one after the first. Don't put carriage returns between the lines of code or they'll appear below one another in your signature. You can space them out by adding spaces between the last "url" tag of a book, and the first "url" tag of the next book. Like this:
--- Code: ---
[url=booklink1 ][img]imagelink1 [/img] [/url]space[url=booklink2][img]imagelink2 [/img] [/url]
--- End code ---
If you want to add a bit more descriptive text, for example what genre you write do it outside the "url" brackets like so:
--- Code: --- [url=booklink1 ][img] imagelink1 [/img] [/url]space[url=booklink2][img]imagelink2 [/img] [/url]
Genre: Epic Fantasy
--- End code ---
To turn that extra bit of text into a link, for example to your blog or mailing list signup page, add url brackets like so:
--- Code: --- [url=booklink1 ][img]imagelink1 [/img] [/url]space[url=booklink2] [img]imagelink2 [/img] [/url]
[url= blog-url-goes-here ] Read my blog! [/url]
--- End code ---
Good luck! :)
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Lysmata Debelius:
...and if you want to add Tim's affiliate link to your signature, to contribute a bit of money to the forum each time somebody clicks one of your links, you can do it like this:
Add
?tag=cirofatl-20
after your book link. So the book link will look like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Fellowship-Ring-Lord-Rings-Book-ebook/dp/B002RI9THI/?tag=cirofatl-20
NathanBurrows:
Perfect, thank you for that.
VanessaC:
A huge thank you for this - the instructions were really clear, easy to follow and so helpful, even for non-tech-savvy me! Also nice to be able to include the affiliate code for the new site.
Got a fright when I clicked on one of my book covers and it enlarged itself, but they seem to have settled down now. :icon_mrgreen:
Having a mini celebration now.
:banana: :dance: :banana:
Kay Inglis:
Very many thanks for this helpful post - I think I have my signature sorted.
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