Marketing and promoting your e-book
e-Books are all the rage – and in many ways quite rightly so. The hardware is hot, with the Apple iPad, Barnes & Noble Nook, and Amazon Kindle literally flying off shelves. e-Books themselves are experiencing incredible growth – up 158% this-versus-last September and while still a small fraction of the overall book market ($39 million in September versus $1.1 BILLION) the market shows no sign of slowing.
It’s also a market where independent authors and publishers can compete toe-to-toe with ‘the big guys.’
e-Books have proven to be an incredible market to … well, market. Here’s some ideas on growing your e-book sales with smart e-book marketing strategies (and in the process, quite likely growing your print book sales too… watch for more on this later).
e-book marketing via your web site
Your website is already a natural tool (and hopefully an SEO optimized one…) for marketing the print version of your book. Add your e-book.
Don’t forget to add a purchase link to the e-book on Amazon or B&N. Make sure to note that it is available on Apple’s iBookstore.
promote your e-book on your blog
You do have a blog, right? You are already marketing your print book there (maybe creating posts from excerpts of select chapters every couple weeks or so…) Your e-book makes this even easier – since the content is already digital and easy to cut-and-paste.
market your e-book through your newsletter
If you have a newsletter for your business, web site, organization, etc – your readers are of course interested in what you have to say. An e-book provides another avenue for your readers to become purchasers. Make sure your e-book (and print book) are mentioned in EVERY newsletter your send.
build e-book awareness through your mailing list
It sounds simple – but you’d be surprised how many authors don’t mention their book (print or ‘e’) in their communication pieces. EVERY email you send, along with every post card you mail, should have a link to your book.
use your e-book as an event follow-up
If you presented at a conference, made a sales call, produced a webinar, exhibited at a trade show – all these can be great resources to send a ‘thank you’ note, and in that email include a link to your e-book.
e-books as sales collateral
It might seem counter-intuitive to give something away that you’d really like to sell, but if your e-book relates to your industry you just might be able to create added revenue (and drive future e-book sales) by using your e-book as a ‘leave behind’.
extract part of your e-book as a ‘white paper’ and syndicate the content
“Syndication” is a method of distributing content. It can seem a bit complex and confusing, and is far beyond the scope of this quick article – but you can find a ton on the topic out on the web. You can create amazing awareness for your e-book by releasing a contained part of the book as a ‘whitepaper’. It, of course, has to be content that can stand alone and is relevant to your topic – but it’s a great way to build interest in the e-book itself. Syndicators are sites that take content (like e-books, webcasts, blogs, etc.) pull it all together from broad sources and then make it available to subscribers.
market your e-book by sharing it with influential bloggers
Giving away content is a great way to reach out to bloggers. EVERY blogger is continually looking for great content to write about – let them have a copy of your e-book.
is your e-book (and print book) part of you LinkedIn profile?
Groups you join and your status should all be made aware of your e-book.
promote your e-book via your Twitter feed
Are there some great ‘one-liners’ in your e-book that you can use to deliver traffic to your web site? Does your book have stats or facts that lend themselves to tweets? Don’t forget to use a hashtag to encourage readers to comment and create conversations.
e-book marketing with a media release
You can reinvigorate your media release campaign by updating it on the release of your e-book.
Filed under: Amazon Kindle, Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble Nook, e-book marketing, ebooks Tagged: | e-book marketing, E-Books
How about an article on how a self-published author can possibly make GOOD money when an e-book can be so easily distributed electronically?
This is so similar to what has happened in the music industry. Most people expect to get music for free. And it is so easy to do. Why would any hard-working author want to see their years of work freely distributed without their permission and no money coming in from that?
I have a book almost ready to be produced, but the situation with electronic media gives me much pause. What does a copyright mean these days…anything??
Thanks!
Sincerely,
Ellen Landauer
Ellen -
GREAT question – and it’s an excellent article idea… but a couple quick notes: 1) e-books to a large degree seem to be much better protected by DRM technology than music – so it’s pretty rare (unless a rights-management mistake is made) for an author’s book to get distributed for free and 2) copyright is as strong as ever – it’s enforcement that has always been the problem. However, in the case of e-books … see note #1. I’ll get started on a new article (I can be a little slow…) on how a self published author can make money from e-books….
great blog
[...] e-book marketing and promotion (via Self Publishing Today) In Uncategorized on November 18, 2010 at 10:07 pm Marketing and promoting your e-book e-Books are all the rage – and in many ways quite rightly so. The hardware is hot, with the Apple iPad, Barnes & Noble Nook, and Amazon Kindle literally flying off shelves. e-Books themselves are experiencing incredible growth – up 158% this-versus-last September and while still a small fraction of the overall book market ($39 million in September versus $1.1 BILLION) the market shows no sign of slowing. It … Read More [...]
Thanks for these tips especially using your ebook as an event follow up. Readers appreciate a thank you note and would often read every detail of it. The flattering gesture could encourage them to do the same for you.