Be aware that any phase difference between left and right will cause cancellation and reduced in volume. Any in phase signals left and right will be increased in volume. Simply adding L and R signals together never sounds as good as you hoped. It's often better to just listen to left or right. To achieve that you would connect the Left (or Right) input to both Left and right inputs.
Unfortunately, tying the left and right output together wont work like that. In phase mono audio going into the amp will come out at normal volume. Mute one channel going into the amp, and at the output, 1 output be trying to drive the no sound 0v, and the other channel trying to drive sound, creating a short circuit, to such an extent that you will burn up the amp chip, or draw too much current from your power supply as 1 channel with sound fights the other which is trying to stop the sound. With out of phase stereo audio going into the amp, this effect gets even 4x worse. And then the magic smoke might come out.
The easiest way is at the input of the amp, just use a series of two 1k resistors connected from your left and right audio source, with the center going to 1 input channel on the amp. EG: use the left. That channel will now have a mono sound. Now, tie the left output to your speaker. Just ignore the right channel.