Link in Bio for Authors: Linktree and the Alternatives Compared
Your social profiles give you one link. Here’s what that link has to do when you sell books, and how six common options handle it.
A reader sees your post, likes the premise, and taps your profile. Whatever sits behind that one link decides whether they buy the book, join your list, or close the app. For most businesses a page of buttons is enough. Authors have a harder problem: several books, several stores per book, series order, preorders, and readers in different countries.
We make one of the tools below, so take our view with that in mind. We’ve tried to be fair about where each option is the better choice, including the cases where it isn’t ours.
What an Author’s Link in Bio Needs to Do
Use this as a checklist when you compare tools. Not every author needs all eight, but the more books you have, the more of them matter.
A link to every store, for every book
Readers have favorite stores. Some only buy on Kindle, some only listen on Audible, some want to support an indie bookshop. If your page offers one Amazon button, you lose the Kobo reader who was ready to buy.
The right local storefront
An amazon.com link sends a reader in Germany or Australia to a store where they cannot buy. Good author links send each reader to their own country’s storefront.
Series in reading order
A new reader who finds book four first needs an obvious path back to book one. A flat list of titles doesn’t give them one.
Newsletter signup
Followers on a social platform can disappear with an algorithm change. Subscribers on your mailing list stay yours. Your link in bio is the best place to ask for the email.
ARC team signup
If you run advance reader campaigns, the readers who follow you are your best recruits. Give them a way to raise their hand.
Preorders that turn into buy links
Someone has to remember to change "Preorder" to "Buy now" on release day. Ideally that someone is the software.
Affiliate tags you control
If you are in the Amazon Associates program, the commission from your own readers should come to you, not to the tool you use.
Analytics that respect readers
You want to know which posts send clicks and which stores readers pick. You probably don’t want a cookie banner in front of your books.
One Author’s Link, Followed Through
Delphine Arkwright has one book coming, The Moth Orchard, a gothic romance out March 3, 2027, and a newsletter of 2,340 readers. Her link in bio has to do four jobs at once before launch, and different ones after it.
- Take preorders everywhere. A reader in Berlin who taps Amazon should land on amazon.de, not a US store that won’t sell to them. Kobo and Apple Books readers need their own buttons.
- Catch the readers who aren’t ready to buy. A “remind me on release day” option for the book, and a newsletter signup that sends the opening chapter as soon as a reader confirms their email.
- Recruit the ARC team. Her most reliable advance readers came from people who already followed her, so the application sits on the same page.
- Change on March 3 without her. Every “Preorder” becomes “Buy now” on release day, wherever the link has been posted.
A page of buttons can do the first and second jobs if she maintains it by hand. The fourth job is where the choice of tool shows: with one book it is a ten-minute chore, and with a series it is an afternoon on every release day.
Six Options, Compared Honestly
Linktree
The tool most people mean when they say "link in bio." You make a page of buttons, and each button goes where you point it.
Good at: It is fast to set up, most readers recognize it, and it works for any kind of link: a podcast episode, a giveaway, a merch shop. The free plan is enough for a basic page.
Falls short: Linktree doesn’t know what a book is. Every store link for every book is a button you add and maintain by hand, so a ten-book backlist across five stores is fifty buttons. There is no concept of a series, and no automatic switch from preorder to release. Some features, like email collection and deeper analytics, sit behind paid plans; check current pricing before you commit.
Best for: Authors with one or two books who mostly want to point at a newsletter and a single retailer.
Beacons
A creator-focused link in bio that bundles in extras like a storefront, media kit, and email tools.
Good at: Beacons is built for people who sell things to an audience, so it offers more than plain buttons. If you also sell digital products or do brand deals, having those in one place is handy.
Falls short: Its commerce features are aimed at creators selling their own products, not books sold through Amazon, Kobo, and Apple. You still build book links by hand, and there is no series view. As with Linktree, the more useful features tend to live on paid plans.
Best for: Authors who are also content creators and want sponsorship and product tools alongside their books.
Carrd
A builder for simple one-page websites. Many authors use it as a nicer-looking link in bio.
Good at: You get real design control for very little money: layout, fonts, images, sections. A well-made Carrd page can look like a small author website.
Falls short: It is a blank canvas. Every book, cover, and store link is something you build and update yourself, and custom domains and forms generally need a paid plan. Nothing updates when you publish a new book.
Best for: Authors who enjoy design, have a small catalog, and don’t mind maintaining the page by hand.
Books2Read
Draft2Digital’s free universal book link service. One link per book shows readers a list of stores to choose from.
Good at: It solves the per-book store problem well, it is free, and you don’t need to publish through Draft2Digital to use it. It can remember a reader’s preferred store. Many authors use Books2Read links inside newsletters and ads.
Falls short: It works best one book at a time. Books2Read offers some author-level pages, but it isn’t designed as a full author homepage with newsletter signup, ARC applications, and your bio in one place. Check how it currently handles affiliate commissions before you rely on it for Amazon links.
Best for: Any author who needs a reliable link for a single book. It pairs well with other tools on this list.
Your own author website
A site on WordPress, Squarespace, or a similar platform, usually at your own domain.
Good at: Nothing beats it for control. You own the domain, you can publish blog posts and events, and search engines can find you by name. For established authors, a website is still the home base.
Falls short: It costs money every year and time every month. Store links, series pages, and newsletter forms all need plugins or hand editing. Most sites are also built for desktop visitors, while link-in-bio traffic is almost all on phones, so many authors end up keeping a separate link in bio page anyway.
Best for: Authors with a growing backlist, press requests, and the time (or budget) to keep a site current.
Familiar Pages
Our link in bio for authors. It builds your page from the books in your Familiar catalog.
Good at: Store links are built from the ISBNs and ASINs you already have, for Amazon, Audible, Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Books-A-Million, IndieBound, and Bookshop.org, and Amazon links open each reader’s local storefront. Every book also gets its own short link. Series show in reading order, preorders switch to "buy now" on release day, and the page can hold a newsletter signup that syncs to MailerLite, Kit, or Mailchimp, a reader magnet, an ARC team application, and a press kit. You can use your own Amazon Associates tag. Analytics are first-party and cookieless.
Falls short: It is built for books, so it is not the place for a merch shop or a sponsorship media kit. Design comes from 13 theme packs rather than a blank canvas, and your page lives at familiar.pub rather than your own domain. There is no free tier: it comes with the Author plan at $15 a month, which shows Familiar referral links on your page, and Author Pro at $30 a month removes them.
Best for: Authors with several books, especially series, who want one page that stays current without hand editing.
Side-by-Side Comparison
A summary of the sections above. Features and plans change, so confirm anything that matters to you on each tool’s own site.
Which One Should You Use?
One book, launching soon
Keep it simple. A Books2Read link for the book plus a newsletter form on Linktree or Carrd is plenty. Spend your time on the launch, not the page.
A series or a backlist
Hand-maintained buttons start to cost you. Pick something that builds store links from your ISBNs and ASINs and shows series order, so a new release is one update instead of twenty.
You also sell merch or do sponsorships
A creator tool like Beacons covers those. You can still link to a book-specific page from it for readers who want your books.
An established career
Keep your website as the home base for press, events, and search. Use a phone-friendly link in bio page for social traffic, and link the two to each other.
How to Set Up Your Link in Bio
Whatever tool you pick, these steps apply.
- List what you want readers to do. Usually: buy the newest book, start the series at book one, join the newsletter. Put those three things at the top, in that order.
- Collect your identifiers. Gather the ISBN for each print and ebook edition and the ASIN for each Kindle edition. Every tool that builds store links automatically needs them.
- Check every store link on a phone. Open each link on your phone, logged out, and confirm it lands on the right edition. Wrong-format links (the hardcover when you meant the ebook) are the most common mistake.
- Add your affiliate tags. If you are an Amazon Associate, add your tag, and one per country if you are enrolled in more than one marketplace.
- Connect your email list. Make sure new signups land in the newsletter tool you already use, so nobody sits in a spreadsheet you forget to import.
- Use the same link everywhere. Instagram, TikTok, Threads, your email signature, and the back matter of your books. One link is easier to keep current than five.
- Review it on every release. When a book comes out, confirm the preorder buttons changed and the new title is at the top. If your tool does this for you, check that it did.
Running advance reader copies before launch? Your link in bio is a good place to recruit for them. The guide to running an ARC campaign covers the rest.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Guides
Self-Publishing Checklist
Every step from finished draft to launch day and after, in the order you will need them.
How Much Does It Cost to Self-Publish?
A line-by-line budget for editing, cover, formatting, ISBNs, and marketing, with three sample budgets.
How to Run an ARC Campaign
Find advance readers, send review copies, and have reviews in place for launch week.