What do you need to be successful in eBook marketing? Content alone won’t make it. Marketing and promoting your content across multiple channels to expand your reach, influence, and credibility is as important as writing an engaging story.
Social media has changed the way we consume content. Nevertheless, the rise of YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram haven’t stopped us from wanting to read good books. Today, you can have a book in less than 30 seconds. Go to Amazon, search the book you want, click the purchase button and download the book to your Kindle, or use a Kindle app on your laptop or tablet. It’s that simple. Instant gratification.
The increase in eBook sales can’t be ignored, despite recent reports showing a slowdown, after several years of exponential growth. Last year, U.S. publishers collected $3 billion in trade ebook sales (unchanged from 2012).
And this is only the sales data from the big publishers. The market is bigger than that.
With 70-80% market share for eBook sales, Amazon remains the Godzilla of the book industry many traditional publishers are genuinely scared of. The biggest online retailer dominates the book industry in more and more countries around the world. This is clearly not just a U.S. phenomenon. Books are a global business therefore learning to compete against the 800 pound gorilla of book retail challenges the status quo.
Why write an eBook?
There are loads of great reasons to create an eBook. Here are some of them:
- Built trust, authority and credibility.
- Position yourself (company or brand) as the trusted expert in your niche, increase visibility and brand awareness.
- Make money (monthly passive income).
- Build an email list of genuine people who like your stuff.
- Learn the skill and master the process of writing quality content fast.
Good enough reasons for me to have written 17 eBooks so far (13 are published on Amazon).
Effective eBook Marketing Tips
Once you have written an eBook (or book) and upload it to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the iBooks Store for example… you realize, there’s another important piece of the puzzle that you need to focus on in order to get your valuable message out and boost sales.
As I look back at the past years and reflect upon the numerous eBook marketing strategies I used, I realize that some things worked better than others.
Let’s have a look at 3 easy and free strategies that have generated great results for me.
Here they are, in case you want to try them out yourself:
1. Publish your eBook on Amazon Kindle before doing the paperback version. Turn your text or word document into a MOBI format and publish your book on Kindle first. The cool thing about Kindle is that you can test different titles, covers and price points with a click of a button. Once you’re satisfied with the results, head over to CreateSpace and release the paperback version of your book.
CreateSpace is an Amazon company that provides free tools to help you self-publish and distribute your books, CDs, DVDs, and video downloads on demand on Amazon.
Here’s one more reason why you want to start with Kindle first. Once your “CreateSpace”-book has been approved and made available to the public, you won’t be able to change the title and the publication date. To do that, you’ll need to start the entire process from scratch aka you must create a new title ID with a new ISBN (International Standard Book Number).
2. Create a separate landing page and a custom tab on Facebook. Use your WordPress theme or a third party plugin (e.g. OptimizePress 2.0 or LeadPages) to create a compelling landing page highlighting the benefits of reading your book. Link the download button to a payment gateway (e.g. PayPal) so that you can collect the money.
Furthermore, create a separate Facebook fanpage for your book or use a custom tab to publish the landing page you created. Give away a chapter from your book for free and run targeted Facebook ads to your fanpage / custom tab to increase visibility and sales.
Free coupons work very well too.
3. Market the book to your email list and ask affiliate partners to promote your book to their lists too. You’ve most certainly heard the saying, “the money is in the list” or “the money is in other people’s lists”. This is why building an email list is vital in business. Remember, your community is your sales and distribution network.
Put your creative genius to work
The three above mentioned eBook marketing strategies have helped me reach out to a wider audience, build credibility and trust, and position myself as an expert authority in the industry.
These are some free and easy tips you can implement right away. Obviously, there are other proven eBook marketing tactics to test and tweak. But you need to write an eBook first, to be able to do that.
I challenge you to put your creative genius to work. You’ll be surprised what you can accomplish!
Over To You
Have you written a book yet? What were your biggest challenges?
In case you haven written a book yet, what’s holding you back?
What eBook marketing strategies have worked best for you?
