Posting text (and a bookcover picture) that links to the Kindle Store

[Harvey]

When you mention a book in your posts to this forum, you can provide a link to Amazon's Kindle Store for that book. You can even insert a picture of the bookcover and make that a clickable link to the Kindle Store. It's convenient! And cool!

And we've developed a tool that makes it fairly painless. Better yet, the tool embeds our affiliate info, so that helps keep our site working for you.

Check out our Amazon Link Maker at http://www.kindleboards.com/link

Thanks for using the Link Maker tool!

[Kirstin]

  an awesome book 

testing my skillz.... 

[Kirstin]

  an awesome book 

testing my skillz.... 

COOL!!!!!!!!

[Harvey]

You did it, Kirsten!

(I loved that book, by the way.)

[Kirstin]

(I loved that book, by the way.)

Oh I did too!!   I gave the paper book (since it was pre-Kindle) to several people to read.  they all loved it!

[Harvey]

After I read it, I was intrigued that the author is a Canadian (like me), and got her start writing technical manuals (somewhat like me). What a leap from writing those to creating that wonderful novel.

[Angela]

  an awesome book 

testing my skillz.... 

I had to click on that link to see what it was and I noticed something I had not noticed before... When the page came up there was a gold banner above the book stating:

Water for Elephants: A Novel and over 190,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device. Learn more.

When I clicked on it I was taken tot the Kindle version of the book. Has that info always been there, or is this something new they have begun doing?

[Bacardi Jim]

I had to click on that link to see what it was and I noticed something I had not noticed before... When the page came up there was a gold banner above the book stating:

Water for Elephants: A Novel and over 190,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device. Learn more.

When I clicked on it I was taken tot the Kindle version of the book. Has that info always been there, or is this something new they have begun doing?

It's newish.

[Bacardi Jim]

Odd.... I have always used Shift+Insert to paste.  Do both work?

[Angela]

It's newish.

I like it! 

[Harvey]

Odd.... I have always used Shift+Insert to paste.  Do both work?

Yes, those are equivalent keyboard shortcuts.

[Kirstin]

  didn't work for me.  I tried it here:

http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,348.new.html#new

I fixed it!  I removed the img thingys on either side of the text spot

[Harvey]

^ I corrected some imprecise instructions for how to get an image URL using Internet Explorer. That should solve things!

[cush]

Harvey- Is there any way to access the Link Tool from the Post Reply screen?  Or do I need to Bookmark it?  Could you perhaps "pin" it at the start of the Tips subforum so it's easy to access?

[admin]

That's a good idea, cush. I'm sure there's a way but I'll have to research it.

In the meantime, I added a link to it in the "News" line that is now at the top of each screen. So at least that provides a direct link to it from any forum page.

[cush]

That's a good idea, cush. I'm sure there's a way but I'll have to research it.

In the meantime, I added a link to it in the "News" line that is now at the top of each screen. So at least that provides a direct link to it from any forum page.

Great, that will be very useful.

[pidgeon92]

updated 11/11/08

These are the steps you need to follow to put a picture link from Amazon into your post. If you have a large monitor, you may wish to put the on the Kindle Board Link Maker page and the Amazon.com product page side-by-side on your screen, as you will need to go back and forth, copying and pasting, a few times.

1. Open the Kindle Board Link Maker page.
2. Open the Amazon.com product page for the book (or accessory, or whatever) you want to link.
3. Copy the ASIN number from the Amazon.com product page.
4. Paste the ASIN number in the Kindle Board Link Maker page in the ASIN number box.
5. Enter the name of the book (or accessory, or whatever) in the Link Text box on the Kindle Board Link Maker page. (this step is optional, only if you want to include a link text as well as a picture link)
6. Copy the image location from the Amazon.com product page.
7. Paste the image location in the Image URL box on the Kindle Board Link Maker page.
8. Push the Create KindleBoards Link button on the Kindle Board Link Maker page.
9. Copy the contents of the Image Link box on the Kindle Board Link Maker page.
10. Paste the contents in your post.

Here's everything, step-by-step, in images:

This is an Amazon.com product page:






This is optional if you only want to do a picture link




This is how right-clicking appears in Internet Explorer. Other browsers may have different options to copy the image, such as Copy Image Location. THIS PIC IS WRONG. THE CORRECT PROCEDURE IS TO Right-click the image, select 'Properties', and then copy/paste the Address ("URL") that is displayed in the properties box. I will update ASAP.













To highlight the link as show below, click the select link below the box.

[Angela]

Can't get any clearer than that! Way to go Pidgeon!

[pidgeon92]

Can't get any clearer than that! Way to go Pidgeon!

Just trying to help out my fellow Kindlers!

[Harvey]

That's wonderful, Verena - thank you!

One correction (which simplifies things): the "link text" field can have *any* text in it - and usually will contain the title of the book. It doesn't have to contain the URL for the Amazon page. Whatever text you type in it, will become the clickable text in your post.

So, step 5 can be changed to say "Type your desired link text into the Link Text box on the Kindle Boards Link Maker page. This will usually be the book's title."

And, step 6 can be deleted.

Thanks for taking the time to document the steps!!

[pidgeon92]

One correction (which simplifies things): the "link text" field can have *any* text in it - and usually will contain the title of the book. It doesn't have to contain the URL for the Amazon page. Whatever text you type in it, will become the clickable text in your post.

I learn something new every day. I made the post for one member in particular who is having a difficult time.

I've updated the post.

[cush]

I'm sort of reluctant to post this after the fine job that's been done above of explaining the process of generating a clickable book cover but there is a very basic step missing in the explanation.
What do you do with the generated link that you have copied?  Where do you paste it?
The answer is that you click on the "insert image" icon in the post composition window (the second little image, between the flash and the globe), this will generate a img and a /img in your post that are each enclosed in brackets. 
Paste the generated link between these two bracketed items. 
This may seem like a no brainer but I played around with this process for fifteen minutes until I tried this.

[pidgeon92]

What do you do with the generated link that you have copied?  Where do you paste it?

You paste the results in your post. No bracketing, the brackets have already been added for you.

[cush]

Well, not on my end.  I get a URL without img brackets as output from the Tool.  Give it a try.  I have to do as I described to get the cover image to appear in my post.

Here's an example.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Q65-BXpiL._SL500_AA242_PIkin-dp-500,BottomRight,-18,38_AA280_SH20_OU01_.jpg

That's copied from the Linking Tool  and pasted directly here.  As you can see, no book image in the post.

Now here it is with the bracketed img code added.  As you can see, now it works.

[pidgeon92]

Well, not on my end.  I get a URL without img brackets as output from the Tool.  Give it a try.  I have to do as I described to get the cover image to appear in my post.

I have no trouble using the tool to create linkable images. The IMG brackets are in the middle and near the end of the output. It all gets nested in between the URL brackets.

This is what the output looks like. I have removed all of the leading brackets so you can see the code.

url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000SEKKGM?ie=UTF8&tag=kindleboards-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000SEKKGM]img]http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B000SEKKGM/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=133140011&s=digital-text[/img]/url]

Is it possible you are pasting the results of the text link box and not the image link box?