There’s a great new free Chrome plugin that any author who sells books on Amazon should check out: WriterWatch.

It’s from the makers of Publisher Rocket (a tool I use and enthusiastically recommend) and Atticus.

Here’s what WriterWatch can do:

1. Daily price checks on your books, whether you changed the price or someone else did
2. Daily review checks, so you’ll know when new reviews have been posted
3. Track how many Amazon followers you have
4. Show you the ABSR (Amazon Best Seller Rank) of your books

Why price checks are important

Even though you set the price of your book, Amazon can change it. Sometimes that’s to match other sites, and sometimes Amazon will drop the price of your book as part of a promotion.

If Amazon drops the price of your book, you’ll still get royalties based on the price you set, but your readers get a bargain. So if you see that Amazon has reduced your price, you can take advantage of that by doing a special promotion. There’s no guarantee how long the low price will remain in effect, so you have to act quickly—something you can do thanks to WriterWatch.

Keeping up with reviews

Amazon reviews are an important part of book promotion but tracking them can be time-consuming. WriterWatch notifies you when new reviews are posted on Amazon.

Your Amazon follower count and book rank

Until WriterWatch, you had to log into your Amazon Author Central dashboard to see how many followers you had. Now that number is at the top of your WriterWatch dropdown, so you can quickly see how your efforts to grow your followers are working.

Your ABSR is listed under the title so you can see how your sales compare to other books on Amazon. Okay, that might be depressing for most authors, but it’s a number worth knowing.

Start using WriterWatch

WriterWatch is free and takes only a few minutes to set up. Because it’s a Chrome plugin, you need to run it on a Chrome browser. If you don’t already have Chrome, you’ll need to download it. Then download WriterWatch at this link.

Pin it to the top bar of your extensions so you can easily see the icon. It turns from gray to orange when you have a notification.

Sync WriterWatch with your Amazon Author Central Account by clicking on the WriterWatch icon, then on the “Sync Your Amazon Account” button. It might take a few minutes for the syncing to complete.

Once you’re successfully synced, your books will be automatically added to the plugin. If you want to delete any books because you don’t want to track them (for example, I have some books that are old and out of date that I don’t care about tracking because I know they’re not selling anymore but the publisher hasn't taken them out of print), just find that book in the dropdown and click on the X at the right of the title.

And here’s something really cool: You can add other authors’ books to your WriterWatch plugin. You might want to monitor books by your favorite authors, your friends or even competing authors. I track books by the clients I ghostwrite for and by the authors we help publish. Just go to that book’s listing on Amazon, click on the WriterWatch icon, and then click on the “Add Book” button.

I’m loving this new tool and I think you will, too. Get WriterWatch for free at this link.