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Articles

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Marketing Myth Exposed: You DON'T Need a Website to Promote Your eBook!

By Rusty Fischer

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The Author of 101 Ways to Promote Your eBook-for FREE! Reveals How to Sell Your eBook Without a Website

It is almost sacrilege to say the following words these days: "I don't have a Website!" Folks will not only look at you funny, they are just as liable to slip out their cell phones and dial 911 to request the urgent assistance of a few bulky men in white coats. And, okay, I admit it: I DO have a Website. However, no one ever goes there because I rarely promote it. Why? Simple:

WRITE ON!

As an eBook author, you've got the skills for your very own marketing campaign handy: your creative writing talent. Whether your eBook is about gardening or gothic ghost stories, you've got enough talent and chutzpah to have written the book, searched out an ePublisher, and gotten your creation out there on the Web and ready to be downloaded by one and all. So keep doing what you do best and write some more!

Take time off from that new gardening guide or gothic novel and spend an afternoon writing an article about your favorite topic instead. A 700-word treatise on "how to sprinkle" or a 1,000 word vampire story will seem like child's play after writing an entire eBook, and as a result you'll have a very handy marketing tool: a brand new, original article/story to submit.

CYBER SUBMISSIONS

Take advantage of the plethora of Web sites, 'zines and e-mail newsletters out there and submit your brand new article accordingly. Run an Internet search on "gardening" or "gothic" and bookmark those sites that accept submissions from frantic freelancers like yourself.

Many of these sites conveniently allow, and indeed prefer, you to submit your article electronically. Take advantage of this fact by creating a concise query letter and then including your story underneath it in the body of the e-mail, never as an attachment. Format your submission for convenient e-mail reading by losing all of your paragraph indents and placing a single space between each paragraph instead. (Your future editor's eyes will thank you!)

OTHER PAYMENT

Don't expect to get rich, however, no matter how many of your bookmarked Web sites agree to publish your article. Very few, if any, of the startup Web sites, 'zines and e-mail newsletters you'll be approaching can afford to pay you much. A $5 deposit in your PayPal account and perhaps a free packet of seeds is pretty good these days. However, your reasons for writing the article weren't for that extra twenty-five cents a word you wanted to charge, were they? Heck no: you want exposure! And that's just what you'll get!

BUCKETS OF BYLINES!

As an added "bonus" for not paying you anything, most Web sites and zines will offer you a graciously lengthy byline. Take advantage of this fact by tacking on a low-key sales pitch for your eBook. Here's mine:

Rusty Fischer is the author of FREEDOM TO FREELANCE: The Editor of The Buzz On Series Reveals How To Find, Get and Keep Your Next Freelance Job, available as an eBook at http://www.athinapublishing.com/fischer.htm.

Two or three lines is fine, and make sure to include the EXACT URL of your author's Web page at your ePublisher! This way, readers can easily click on your hyperlink and jump straight to your sales information. As an added attraction, many Web publishers allow you to keep all rights to your article or story. This, in turn, allows you to turn around and "sell" your story over and over again. While you may not exactly rake in the dough by publishing with one or more Web site or zine, just think of all those handy hyperlinks you're racking up!

THAT WAS THEN . . .

. . . but this is now! In the old days, you wrote an article for a magazine, and if you were lucky, they published a short blurb about you in the back with the photo credits and classified ads for art schools. If a die-hard reader was eager enough to find this blurb and read it, they found out about your new book, wrote it down, and then ran to their local library or bookstore to check it out or, hopefully, buy it. If they didn't lose steam along the way, that is. And plenty of them did!

Nowadays, however, readers of your fascinating gardening article or gothic ghost story can simply click on your sales info as soon as they're done reading it! While they're still inspired with your expertise, they can easily whip out the old credit card, type in their ordering information, and download your book before the wind is out of their sales. Congrats, you've just made your first hyperlink sale!

MORE MONEY, FEWER CLICKS

Remember, however, to keep your byline short and to the point. For instance, I used to include the hyperlink for my Web site in my byline, along with the hyperlink for my ePublisher's ordering information for my eBook. Why? Who knows? Vanity, most likely. I'd spent all those long hours building it, by golly, somebody better go visit! But once there, viewers still had to click on my book cover to get back to my ePublisher and actually purchase it.

For most Web browsers, that is simply way too many clicks. So cut out the middle man and list only the most vital, and profitable, hyperlink in your byline. After all, one hyperlink per byline is a good rule to follow. If you've got six eBooks out there, don't list them all, just the most recent one. Or, perhaps, the one that's selling the least. Make your one and only hyperlink count, and soon, you'll be the one "counting" all those royalty checks!

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Rusty Fischer is the author of FREEDOM TO FREELANCE: The Editor of The Buzz On Series Reveals How To FIND, GET and KEEP Your Next Freelance Job, available for sale as an eBook from www.athinapublishing.com/fischer.htm.

Email: karen@author-network.com