dist-hook: keeping symlinks

[Jeremiah Benham]

I want to include a directory that has symlinks in it. How do I include
this in a tarball? I tried adding this to the Makefile.am 

dist-hook: 
        cp -a $(srcdir)/actions $(distdir)

When I unpacked the tarball I noticed that what was symlinks became
copies. Is there a way to do this. I know I can add links with a
install-data-hook but I was hoping I could just create the links (self
contained) in the actions directory and then include it into the
tarball. Is this possible?

Thanks,
Jeremiah