How to Market your Book
Posted 6th May 2014 at 04:17 AM by DianaHeuser
After you’ve written your e-book, marketing it is crucial so readers can purchase it. It can be a wonderful book, but if no one knows it exists, they can’t buy it. You can’t just write a best seller and expect readers to magically find it.
There are thousands and thousands of e-books out there and you want readers to find yours. The good news is that there are many ways to market your book that are easy yet effective.
1) Join a Book Blog Train
A book Blog train is similar to a Blog Tour for your book, but the difference is that you have a lot of authors all taking part at the same time. The power of this is that all the authors then promote the blog train, and that increases the exposure to your book and author name.
2) Referrals
Like anything, the most effective tool to get customers to buy your book, is word of mouth referrals. People trust their friends’ recommendations. If someone asks their friends for recommendations whether it be real life friends or social media friends, that person is likely to buy based on their friends recommendations.
If you’ve written an e-book that people enjoy, the good news is, they can become some of your best marketing tools when they recommend your book to others. However, this doesn’t happen first but this is a wonderful benefit after you’ve marketed your e-book.
Here are several ways to market your e-book and most of them are free:
3) Author’s website or Blog
To start, you need an author’s website or blog. Have a page describing your e-book, an author’s page about you, and an easy way for readers to purchase your e-book. Make sure there is a contact form and a link to your book on Amazon. You may want to let people read the first few pages of your e-book for free so they can get a feel for it. If they like what they read, they are likely to buy it. Also, have some good reviews on your website. You can give away a few e-books in exchange for a review that you can put on your website.
4) Book Description
Be sure you have an interesting and well written description of your book. Write a book description to put on Amazon and your website that will pull readers in and make them want to purchase your e-book.
5) Build a List
Allow visitors to your website to join your email list. Offer an incentive for them to join your list such as a chapter for free or a coupon. Use your email list to give updates on any upcoming books you are writing, any relevant news, ask for feedback and reviews, and if you have other e-books, offer discounts or coupons for them being on your list.
6) Social Media
The next step to market your e-book is social media. Social media is extremely powerful. Use your twitter account or if you don’t have one, set one up. Follow people that have similar interests and are interested in what your e-book is about. For example, if you wrote about “whales” then find people on twitter that are interested in whales and start talking about it. Don’t be shy to jump into conversations, but don’t just start spamming your book. Be social, share your opinions, make friends. Be sure to put the link to your website in your twitter background and that you are an author-with the name of your e-book(s) in your twitter bio so your followers can go to your website.
Giveaways on twitter are a great way to get more attention for your e-book. Hold a contest where you will give away your e-book to X amount of people, but they have to retweet the contest. This way, their followers will also become aware of your e-book.
Don’t forget about other social media platforms. Establish an author’s page on Facebook and Google +.Talk about the topic of your e-book, engage with potential customers and get your name out there. Don’t forget, the more social you are on social media, the more exposure you get as a writer.
7) Get your book featured on other blog sites
Find good blogs that are on the subject of your e-book and contact the blogger. Ask them if you could guest blog. Back to the example of “whales”, you would look for a few good blogs about whales and contact the owner of the blog asking to be a guest blogger. You would write a post using your knowledge about the subject and include a link to your website or your listing on Amazon or wherever your e-book is sold.
The blogger will usually be happy to get a post of new material to their blog for free and you will reach their audience.
Also go to blogs and websites related to your e-book and leave comments. Not spam of course, but leave a real comment and many blogs and websites ask for your website, so if someone sees your comment and clicks on your name, they go to your website.
8) Getting paid help
With a small budget, you can get great help in marketing and promoting your e-book so it’s not all on your shoulders. How much help you get depends on your budget. Fiverr.com is an excellent resource. Every gig there only costs $5. Purchase a few gigs based on what you would like help with. You can find people to help you promote your e-book, submit your website to directories, give your website backlinks, make graphics and logos for you, and so much more. Hire a few different gigs at only $5 each and let others help you.
9) YouTube Videos
If you can make videos, you can make a short video to upload to Youtube. Perhaps you can read a page or two of your e-book or you can simply talk about what your books is about.
10) List your book on free sites
Promote your e-book on free sites. There are some websites you can list your e-book on for free to get your e-book out there more and in front of more eyes.
11) Offline Marketing
Don’t forget offline marketing as well. Tell your real life friends and family about your e-book to spread the word. You can get cute bookmarks designed that includes the name of your e-book, your name and your website. This is like a business card, but with a use. Make a stack of these available at your local and nearby libraries.
Join a book club. You can go to meetup.com and search for any book clubs in your area.
Of course when you join, bring your printed books to pass out and let the members know you are also an author.
It’s every author’s goal to get sales and recognition for the hard work they put into their e-book and following these marketing tips will make that goal come true
Happy Marketing,
Di
There are thousands and thousands of e-books out there and you want readers to find yours. The good news is that there are many ways to market your book that are easy yet effective.
1) Join a Book Blog Train
A book Blog train is similar to a Blog Tour for your book, but the difference is that you have a lot of authors all taking part at the same time. The power of this is that all the authors then promote the blog train, and that increases the exposure to your book and author name.
2) Referrals
Like anything, the most effective tool to get customers to buy your book, is word of mouth referrals. People trust their friends’ recommendations. If someone asks their friends for recommendations whether it be real life friends or social media friends, that person is likely to buy based on their friends recommendations.
If you’ve written an e-book that people enjoy, the good news is, they can become some of your best marketing tools when they recommend your book to others. However, this doesn’t happen first but this is a wonderful benefit after you’ve marketed your e-book.
Here are several ways to market your e-book and most of them are free:
3) Author’s website or Blog
To start, you need an author’s website or blog. Have a page describing your e-book, an author’s page about you, and an easy way for readers to purchase your e-book. Make sure there is a contact form and a link to your book on Amazon. You may want to let people read the first few pages of your e-book for free so they can get a feel for it. If they like what they read, they are likely to buy it. Also, have some good reviews on your website. You can give away a few e-books in exchange for a review that you can put on your website.
4) Book Description
Be sure you have an interesting and well written description of your book. Write a book description to put on Amazon and your website that will pull readers in and make them want to purchase your e-book.
5) Build a List
Allow visitors to your website to join your email list. Offer an incentive for them to join your list such as a chapter for free or a coupon. Use your email list to give updates on any upcoming books you are writing, any relevant news, ask for feedback and reviews, and if you have other e-books, offer discounts or coupons for them being on your list.
6) Social Media
The next step to market your e-book is social media. Social media is extremely powerful. Use your twitter account or if you don’t have one, set one up. Follow people that have similar interests and are interested in what your e-book is about. For example, if you wrote about “whales” then find people on twitter that are interested in whales and start talking about it. Don’t be shy to jump into conversations, but don’t just start spamming your book. Be social, share your opinions, make friends. Be sure to put the link to your website in your twitter background and that you are an author-with the name of your e-book(s) in your twitter bio so your followers can go to your website.
Giveaways on twitter are a great way to get more attention for your e-book. Hold a contest where you will give away your e-book to X amount of people, but they have to retweet the contest. This way, their followers will also become aware of your e-book.
Don’t forget about other social media platforms. Establish an author’s page on Facebook and Google +.Talk about the topic of your e-book, engage with potential customers and get your name out there. Don’t forget, the more social you are on social media, the more exposure you get as a writer.
7) Get your book featured on other blog sites
Find good blogs that are on the subject of your e-book and contact the blogger. Ask them if you could guest blog. Back to the example of “whales”, you would look for a few good blogs about whales and contact the owner of the blog asking to be a guest blogger. You would write a post using your knowledge about the subject and include a link to your website or your listing on Amazon or wherever your e-book is sold.
The blogger will usually be happy to get a post of new material to their blog for free and you will reach their audience.
Also go to blogs and websites related to your e-book and leave comments. Not spam of course, but leave a real comment and many blogs and websites ask for your website, so if someone sees your comment and clicks on your name, they go to your website.
8) Getting paid help
With a small budget, you can get great help in marketing and promoting your e-book so it’s not all on your shoulders. How much help you get depends on your budget. Fiverr.com is an excellent resource. Every gig there only costs $5. Purchase a few gigs based on what you would like help with. You can find people to help you promote your e-book, submit your website to directories, give your website backlinks, make graphics and logos for you, and so much more. Hire a few different gigs at only $5 each and let others help you.
9) YouTube Videos
If you can make videos, you can make a short video to upload to Youtube. Perhaps you can read a page or two of your e-book or you can simply talk about what your books is about.
10) List your book on free sites
Promote your e-book on free sites. There are some websites you can list your e-book on for free to get your e-book out there more and in front of more eyes.
11) Offline Marketing
Don’t forget offline marketing as well. Tell your real life friends and family about your e-book to spread the word. You can get cute bookmarks designed that includes the name of your e-book, your name and your website. This is like a business card, but with a use. Make a stack of these available at your local and nearby libraries.
Join a book club. You can go to meetup.com and search for any book clubs in your area.
Of course when you join, bring your printed books to pass out and let the members know you are also an author.
It’s every author’s goal to get sales and recognition for the hard work they put into their e-book and following these marketing tips will make that goal come true
Happy Marketing,
Di
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