August 2025 was the first full month of my site, The Book Hook Online, in support of self-published (indie) authors. I am pleased with the steady growth of content on the site. This is my summary of what has been happening and how things have evolved so far.
The Book Hook Author Policy
When I finished setting up the basics of the site, I joined various social media platforms to both promote my books and invite other indie authors to participate. Whilst it is possible to randomly add books by indie authors to the site this is not my policy. The approach I take is one where if I have an interaction with an indie author on social media, I will send them an introductory message. If I have positive feedback, then I will list their works on the site.
I have grown a small but diverse portfolio of participants from several corners of the world: The USA, Australia, and Africa. So far, I do not have anyone listed based in my native UK. I am not sure if this is a surprise to me or not. In any case adding diversity to the site has been a bonus.
I will mention Lyra Wilder, a college student from the USA. Lyra has been the first to provide me with video content beyond that of my own. I hope the use of videos and individual content will attract visitors to the site and help it gain rankings.
Book Hook Social Media
I have never really been interested in social media because I never had the need to advertise what I do. This was until I started self-publishing and creating The Book Hook. I started off with Instagram, X, Threads, and Facebook before creating YouTube and TikTok channels.
Whilst the site can load videos files it is constrained to 64MB in size. Therefore, for larger videos I have to link onto the videos hosted on YouTube.
The other motivation for this is that I am considering working with Google Ads. This could provide a source of funding the site. However, to gain approval for this the site is required to have content more than just book or product listings. Therefore, I hope with the participation of authors like Lyra this might become an option. Interestingly when I link to videos from the site I have tended to link onto YouTube, but TikTok which I have not directly linked to has had the highest number of views.
Instagram so far is the site that has provided me with the greatest number of followers. Facebook has been good for group participation.
Amazon Affiliate Program
The site has been approved to join the Amazon Affiliate Program hence the introduction of the Affiliate Products pages on the site. Again, the idea is to provide a source of funding for the site. At the moment the page is linking to products on the UK Amazon site. Whilst it was an easy program to sign up for, gaining approval to be able to link on to any Amazon site is proving a little harder.
It is necessary to gain three sales from the links that do not come from an associates to the seller. I have had fives sales through these links but, none of them have been counted as Amazon has managed to identify the buyers as my associates. This is probably by the virtue that the buyers and I have previously exchanged gifts via Amazon. So, I am still waiting for my first truly independent sale. It is something Amazon are quite strict on because they do not to want people to use the program as means of attracting a discount. Therefore, I must work a little harder before I can achieve my goal with this.
Barnes & Noble Press
During the last days of August, I decided to join the Barnes & Noble Press, self-publishing program. It is possible to publish on both Amazon KDP and Barnes & Noble provided that releases on Amazon are not part of the KDP Select program. Publications are then listed on the Barnes & Noble site.
There three things to be aware of when considering this. First of all, if you dual publish something that already exists on Amazon with a free ISBN linked to Amazon, when publishing on Barnes & Noble Press you must obtain one of their free ISBN’s. This means that the book will have two site specific, ISBN’s.
To avoid this is to plan to dual publish from the start and buy an ISBN from a third party. There are a number of services that offer this facility, just search for ISBN providers on Google and choose the one most appropriate for you.
Second, if you have an existing print book to a specific size on Amazon, depending on what that size is and the type of cover, the size and cover option may not be available on Barnes & Noble. Again, plan from the start and choose a common size and cover combination to both platforms to avoid having to reformat.
The last point to note is for e-books. Barnes & Noble Press has a manuscript upload limit of 20 MB for e-books, which is not ideal for a book containing photographs.
I hope you have enjoyed this insight into the progress of The Book Hook Online. I hope participating gain sales. Other indie authors interested in participating do get in touch.
J K Mullins
The Book Hook Online
