Following on from my previous post
Marketing your ebook
Felix Dahn wrote: “To write books is easy, it requires only pen and ink and the ever-patient paper . . . But the most difficult task of all that a mortal man (or woman) can embark on is to sell a book.”
This is probably the most crucial step to get your information publishing business going. You will need to spend a lot of time promoting your ebook as it will not sell itself no matter how good it is! Take time to come up with a multi-pronged marketing strategy to attract as much interest as possible.
Here are some great tips to help you promote your information product:
- Pre-sell. When promoting your ebook you should include pre-launch promotional efforts to start building anticipation. Try writing blog posts related to your topic leading up to the launch. You could try posting a sample chapter of your ebook or give away a free report related to your ebook topic. You could also offer free video clips if appropriate. If you can manage to get potential customers excited about your product before it is available, they will eagerly snap it up when you launch.
- Ensure you have a well designed squeeze/landing page for your ebook. This page should clearly describe the benefits and/or problem your ebook will solve. Take the time to write a benefit-rich headline that speaks directly to the reader’s self-interest. This page should ALWAYS have a call to action. This action may be to purchase your e-book, opt-in to your newsletter, subscribe to your blog etc.
- Testimonials work really well so try to include several in your sales page. This tells visitors that someone other than you found the content of your ebook to be useful. You could give away a few copies to friends and ask for their testimonials for a start.
- It can pay to give away free copies to bloggers. In return ask them to post a review of your ebook or maybe even post an interview with you about your ebook. This will definitely give your ebook more credibility. It will also mean that your book gets exposed to other bloggers’ audiences and this in turn may provide back links to your ebook landing page.
- Create a Squidoo lens about your ebook and use it to promote your ebook.
- If you have a blog (and you really should do) write a post about your ebook on your blog. You will find it much easier to sell an ebook if you have already have a blog and a subscriber base you can sell to.
- Visit other related blogs and write guest posts on the topic of your ebook. The whole point of this is to expose you to a wider audience and to builds back links to your ebook landing page. It will also lend you credibility as an authority on your chosen subject.
- Include your ebook in your email signature box. It might read Joe Bloggs, author of “How to…… “.
- Use Twitter. Make regular tweets about your subject so that people identify you as an expert in that subject-matter. You could also use your blog to send any posts to Twitter and Facebook. Social networking can be a powerful tool but remember that it is all about helping others first, and if you can do that then they’ll want to help you. So don’t just bombard people with tweets about your ebook and make sure that you’re providing value to your followers.
- Create an affiliate program. This enables others to market the ebook for you. Always offer your affiliates a decent percentage of the commission and supply them with the necessary marketing tools to help them promote your product. Have at least a 125 x 125 banner to offer affiliates, and preferably give them a selection of banners to choose from.
- Build a mailing list. This is an absolutely vital step in building your business and you should always be looking at ways to build your list and thus prospective buyers. On average, people need to see a marketing message seven times before they’ll take action and buy your product. One of the best ways is to use a newsletter. Use this to provide your readers with quality information on a regular basis and you build credibility and trust, at the same time keeping your message in front of your audience.
- Write articles about your topic and submit them to article directories. Three of the best article directories are Ezine Articles, Go Articles, and Article Dashboard. Once again this creates back links and increases credibility. Also, by obtaining all these back links to your website/blog you will rank better in search engines and thus increase traffic.
- . It may be worth considering publishing excerpts from your ebook. This is basically the equivalent of Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature. Excerpts let people get a feel for your ebook, the quality of your writing, and the type of information they can expect to find inside. You can also create a free “teaser” ebook or report. Make sure your “teaser” provides lots of value and leaves people wanting more. Other things you may wish to consider are; offer tips related to your ebook’s topic, offer a free ecourse, or create a video.
- Find a Joint Venture Partner. These are basically the big players in your niche and they can really boost your ebook sales. Make sure to give your joint venture partners perks such as exclusive marketing tools and higher commissions than your affiliates.
- Create urgency with a limited-time offer. You may want to offer your ebook with a 25% discount during the first 60 days after it’s first launched. This will give your offer some urgency and encourage people to act now rather than later.
- Offer bonuses. This is a great tool – everybody wants something for free! People like to feel that they’re getting a lot of bang for their buck, so always offer a bonus or something extra to anyone who buys your ebook if possible. This could be a free report, another related ebook, free video etc. You could use this in conjunction with a limited-time offer such as only offering the bonuses to “the first 50 people who purchase” in order to encourage quick action. If you do offer a bonus, ensure to monetise it so people are aware that the bonus is valuable (“order now and receive this bonus report, normally £10, for free.”)
- Think about creating a YouTube video. This can be as simple as you talking about why you wrote the ebook, and what it’s about, or just reading a chapter of your ebook.
- Does your subject lend itself to a study course? If it does, create a free mini-course about your subject. If you give people valuable information for free, they’ll be much more likely to buy from you.
- Leave comments on other blogs Find the top blogs related to your subject and leave helpful comments. That way, their visitors are likely to click over to your site to see what else you have to say. And, of course, you’ll be able to direct them to your ebook once they reach your site.
- Search the internet for groups, forums, and discussion boards that relate to your topic. Once you join these groups, be present and active, but not pushy.
- Be helpful. Whatever your subject is, always try to be helpful to anyone who is looking for information on your topic. Answer any questions that you can Twitter and forums and regularly participate in discussions. Put the link to your eBook in your signature. Publish useful posts on your blog. Represent yourself as a helpful, knowledgeable, genuine person and members will check you out and find your link.
- If you have a lot of expertise in the same subject area as your ebook, volunteer to be an expert on sites like AllExperts.com. All the questions you answer will be for free, but you can put your ebook or website link in your profile. Users will check out your profile, see the link to your ebook, and hopefully visit your site.
Use as many of these tools as possible and you should be getting the best out of your promotion and getting your product in front of as many people as possible. Be aware that it may take 3-6 months for your marketing efforts to start paying off, but patience is a virtue and you will reap what you sow.
Good luck…
I hope that this 8 part series on writing your ebook has been valuable. If it has, please leave me some feedback especially if it has helped or inspired you.
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