Articles
eBook Promotion Made eEasy!
By Rusty Fischer
The author of 101 Ways to Promote Your eBook-For FREE! Reveals 8 Easy Ways to Promote Your eBook-For Free!
Writing your new eBook? Piece of cake. Getting it ePublished? Nowadays, it’s almost just as easy. Persuading customers to plunk down real money for your virtual words? Now THAT’S hard work! eAuthors are quickly finding that just because their work is ePublished, doesn’t mean it’s also eProfitable! But with these 8 great tips, you can make ePromotion eEasy-for FREE!
CHOP IT UP!
One of the best ways to promote an eBook is to let people see some of it first-for FREE! Best-selling authors do it all the time, serializing the first several chapters of their latest releases in magazines, or often tacking on the first chapter of their upcoming book at the end of their latest paperback release. Why not follow this practice for yourself?
Run an Internet search and find several Web sites or newsletters devoted to your eBook’s genre or topic, or even on writing eBooks. Have several 1,000 word excerpts from your new eBook that can stand on their own as independent articles ready. Submit these to your chosen sites or ‘zines and include a brief blurb or signature line including your name, the eBook’s name, and your ePublisher’s URL to accompany the article. Hey, for those sites that pay, you could even make money while promoting your new eBook at the same time!
READ THE FINE PRINT!
If at all possible, include your ePublisher’s URL on your eBook cover art. This may not matter much when the cover is displayed on your own ePublisher’s download page for your book, but it comes in handy when you use the cover art to represent your work on other Web sites or in printed matter.
To fit, the print may have to be small, but when you can post your cover elsewhere without a caption or the option of linking to your ePublisher’s Web site, this little trick more than makes up for it.
HOLLY DAZE!
Use those hokey holiday notices (Mother’s Day, Valentine’s, etc.) in your local newspaper to your advantage. These offers are generally FREE and usually edited by the lowest assistant to the assistant editor on the totem pole, so it’s quite possible that you’ll be able to slip in a reference to your new eBook as the perfect Mother’s Day or Valentine’s gift (along with a sweet message to your Mom or sweetheart, of course). Be sure to include the ePublisher’s Web address whenever you can!
SUNDAY SCHEDULE!
Don’t forget the want-ads! These little beauties are full of business opportunities in the making, and just because you’ve got a day job or are a full-time freelance writer shouldn’t mean that you forget about them entirely.
Scour the Sunday paper for freelance writing opportunities, part-time editorial or copywriting positions, or simply to find contact names in your eBook’s topic or genre. Offer your services to any and all comers and soon you could be making extra money AND promoting your eBook, all at the same time!
START BEFORE YOU’RE THROUGH!
Remember, this is YOUR book. Your eBOOK. The rules are different now. You can start promoting your eBook before it’s even through! For instance, many search engines take weeks, if not months, to actually post your link on their Web sites. Use this down time to begin posting self-promotional articles on writer’s Web sites or freelance e-zines. As soon as you’ve got a link or a Web credit, submit it to all the major search engines. When the eBook comes out, you’ll already have this built-in material to post on your ePublisher’s, or even your own, Web site.
TALK, TALK!
Call into radio talk shows on your topic (The Gardening Hour, Fiction Time, Story Show, etc.) and offer “expert” advice, with your status as an eAuthor on the subject stated loud and clear both before and after your comments. Often the show’s host or producer will ask you why you are qualified to talk on the subject, and your credentials as an eAuthor on the subject come in handy at times like these.
Follow up the appearance with a call to the show’s producer offering to be a guest on the show! Like busy chat room moderators and overworked Web masters, radio talk show hosts, most of which work for understaffed, low paying public access or AM stations, are often in need of a little relief come show time. You might be surprised by how easy it is to get a guest spot on such shows.
YOU’VE BEEN FRAMED!
Why limit your promotional activities to your off hours? Blowup or print your eBook’s cover art, in color if possible, and frame it in your office, cubicle or broom closet at work. After all, you never know who’s looking when you’re not around. Everyone from colleagues to custodians could have more than a passing interest in your topic or expertise, so be sure to include your ePublisher’s URL in the frame, or even on a strip of paper if it’s not on your cover art, and secret sales could start adding up before you know it. Push your friends and family to do the same in their offices.
BE JUDGE-MENTAL!
Volunteer to judge a writing contest in your genre or local writers’ group. Judges always get a bio and expert status at the same time. It’s also a good way to network with the other professionals who are serving as judges, not to mention the folks who are running the contest. Inviting guests from your ePublisher’s Web site to join the contest further solidifies your expert status as a judge, and brings smiles to the folks throwing the contest as well.
Just make sure the contest is on the up and up and that, if they do have an entry fee, it’s very small and only serves to cover the cost of the prizes and publicity. There’s no sense in promoting a bad contest, and attaching your name to one is a great way for your all-important credibility to suffer.
*****
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.
If you would like to submit an article, please email: beth@author-network.com