Amazon Author Pages will soon be adding more social media functionality to give authors an edge. In the near future, Author Central accounts will be able to stream the Facebook Timeline, which will help authors build more relationships with their fans.
For the most part, authors spend a great deal of time on Twitter or Facebook to share updates with their fans. This will help the discoverability of authors and help maintain their fan base.
The author portal also offers useful tools, like a sales heat map that authors can use to geo-target their marketing efforts and, for Amazon Publishing authors, a beta program that lists daily Kindle ebook unit sales.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.