When you promote your eBook, it is a process that requires planning and structure. Here are 5 tips to get ahead with eBook marketing.
In this Promote Your eBook article, you will find advice in the following areas:
- Why Promoting Your eBook is important and can help generate leads and sales in a crowded market place,
- How a planned focus on social media is critical to sharing your passion as a writer, your published works, and developing a following online,
- The need for a website landing page on your author website, so you can share links to the exact book you are promoting,
- Why the art of selling eBooks is vital to recoup some of your costs as a writer,
- How to utilise your mailing lists to inform subscribers of what’s going on behind the scenes as well as promote your latest novel,
- Generating eye-catching visuals can be the difference between your eBook promotion being invisible and engaged with on social media,
Read the rest of the Promote Your eBook article and apply the advice to help sell more books online.
To promote your eBook, you need to see it as a long-term project that requires planning and structure. On March 3rd, I launched my second novel, Anna’s Awakening. Unlike Inside Iris, I completed every step of the process myself. eBook marketing is a topic that is regularly discussed on forums and on the wider internet in general. It is also a topic that can be filled with smoke and mirrors.
There are many creative writing blogs out there that proclaim to be the be all and end all in how to promote your eBook. The fact is that all eBook marketing is a process of trial and error that depends on a multitude of factors. If a creative writing blogger suggests that by applying their ‘Top 5 Tips’ will ensure number one ‘bestseller’ status then I would that their points with a pinch of salt. Do your research diligently and take the best advice from multiple blogs, including this one.
As I work through the third of my fiction books, the Hexingham Chronicles, I know that the process for making people aware of the project and its release starts now. However, I also know it’s not the case of hammering people over the head repeatedly to buy the book. There are multiple approaches and eBook marketing styles that one needs to consider when it comes to planning and structuring their approach.
In this article, I share a number of tips to promote your eBook as you move into the latter part of 2020. There are many of my fellow online writing community members across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram who are in the process of NaNoWriMo at the minute. Consider these 5 eBook marketing tips as you pen the first draft of the novel on the screen before you.
Why Promote Your eBook?
As a Kindle fiction author, you cannot simply plan and write the book. In the rapidly changing economy, many business owners have to take on multiple jobs to ensure every piece of the puzzle is put into the right place. As the proud mother or father of that novel, you need to take sincere pride in it and promote it within the writing community and on social media. If you don’t promote your eBook, no one else will do it for you unless you pay an agency for the privilege.
On social media, there is a lot of noise with millions of writers trying to get people to buy or download their latest work. Unfortunately, this means the job of promoting a book online is made that much harder, as everyone is selling and precious few people are buying. in fact, many writers give away free Kindle books, meaning millions of Kindle owners expect books to be available for free.
In the modern world of self, independent, and traditional publishing, it is important to take the business of promoting your novel seriously. By following the tips below, you will be able to consider your approach to promote your e-Book in the future with added focus, leading to more sales, readers, and reviews.
Focus On Social
When it comes to working as a self-published or independent author in 2020, it is vital that you utilise all social media channels to the best of your ability. Where some writers will try to have a presence on all possible networks, this can leave your reach and influence spread too thin.
In my Social Media & You e-Learning course, I work with learners to carefully research and consider all social networks carefully. Whereas some writers will get lots of traction on visual platforms, like Tik-Tok and YouTube, others will benefit from a much more vocal media platform, like Linked-In or Twitter.
When you choose to delve into the world of social media, it is vital that you audit which networks will be most beneficial to you as a writer as well as the fiction or poetry you create. Unfortunately, many writers can find themselves spread too thin and will focus on quantity over quality. This means that you find yourself posting on social media for the sake of it with little focus or plan. This means your followers can become disengaged and your writer profile doesn’t get the exposure it deserves.
To avoid this, develop a content plan that is varied and includes engaging content that will share who you are as a writer and educate or inform those who take the time to follow you. This will ensure that your followers get value from your social media channel and will like or share the content you produce, getting you more reach and, hopefully, more sales.
Promote Your eBook On A Landing Page
As a professional blogger, who works for businesses to increase their organic reach on Google search engine results pages, I regularly explain the need for companies to create specific landing pages for the goods or products they sell.
By creating a specific landing page for your books, you will be able to direct visitors the specific page you wish to promote. On the SG Fiction website, I created pages for Inside Iris and Anna’s Awakening for those reasons. It means that I can share a website link within the social media posts or paid Google Ads, meaning ads cost less and the Search Engine Optimisation of my website increases over time.
Within these pages, you can feel free to include praise for the books, links to multimedia content, and share reviews. It will help those who visit your website to get a flavour for each work you have published as well as give them a chance to purchase the book on Amazon or elsewhere with a Call-To-Action button.
If You Aim To Sell, Then Sell
When you start writing a book, you ultimately hope to get into the hands of readers and, in turn, get a few positive reviews on Amazon. At times, crossing the divide to make actual sales is incredibly difficult, which is ironic when millions of people claim to be ‘bibliophiles’ and ‘bookworms’ who won’t pay for a book from self-published or independent writers.
Some ‘bibliophiles’ and ‘bookworms’ on social media like to offer their services to provide book reviews for writers. However, they want a free copy of the book and expect to be paid for the privilege of leaving a book review on Amazon. Try not to utilise services such as these, as you will find yourself out of pocket and disheartened when your book sales don’t take off as expected.
Fiction writing is a long, laborious task that can take years of an author’s life. When you take hard-costs into consideration, it can cost writers thousands of pounds/dollars/euros to get their book edited and published in the end. Therefore, if you hope to recoup some of that financial outlay in some shape or form, you need to SELL the book.
This may sound like an obvious point when you promote your eBook, but, when Kindle owners are offered thousands of novels for free, it’s hard to get them to spend even one pound to download a three-hundred page novel. Still, as a writer, do your utmost to sell the book and not offer free downloads. If possible, offer reduced prices as promotions from time to time but, if you give your work away for free, it can be hard to close the gate after the horse has bolted. Readers will wait for the next free download and be reluctant to spend the £3.99 in future.
Utilise Your Mailing List
In business, email marketing remains one of the most lucrative revenue streams for companies to inform customers or clients of new offers, promotions, or products that are coming up. As authors, you can use these when you promote your eBook.
Many websites use contact forms in order to get a free download or avail of an introductory offer. By including such forms on your author website, you will be able to gather a series of email addresses that you can use to send newsletters or e-zines to subscribers. Here, you can share news about yourself, your work-in-progress and, of course, the books you currently have for sale.
Again, as with the previous point in this article, it can be difficult to encourage people to spend money and also willingly input their email address into a contact form. Also, in the EU/UK, it is important to ensure you don’t breach GDPR regulations.
On the other hand, if you have a lengthy email list, it is a list of contacts who are interested in you as a writer, your work, and will be more receptive to purchasing your latest work – use it!
Eye-Catching Visuals
When working with clients on social media campaigns for their business, I emphasise the importance to do their utmost to create visuals that catch people’s attention on social media feeds. On average, you have between one and two seconds to catch the eye of followers scrolling through their latest news feeds. This means that you need to consider how you present all visuals when you promote your e-book. ensure you use high-res images that showcase your work in its best light (literally, in some cases).
The visuals aren’t just important when it comes to social media campaigns. Book cover design is vital to making a positive first impression with those who scroll social media or the charts within Amazon genres. Here, it is important to do your research on the competition within the genre you are writing. What are the bestselling covers like? What do you like about them? What do you dislike? Make notes on the positives and negatives and let them influence your own designs.
At times, writers produce their own book covers but, in the end, this is where you can seriously miss a trick. By hiring a graphic designer to compose a bespoke book cover for your upcoming novel, you will have a unique piece of artwork to encase the story you slaved over for months or years.
Eye-catching visuals can make the difference between someone stopping at your promotion, clicking on it, and considering a purchase through social media or on Amazon. Take the time and put the effort into how your visuals when you promote your e-Book.
Promote Your eBook: The Takeaway
Book promotion is a complex world where many writers can feel overwhelmed at the thought of shouting about their novel from the rooftops. Still, it is a vital piece of the puzzle when you write a novel, put it online, and hope that people buy it.
When you promote your eBook, consider the tips included above and put a plan in place for how you will share your next promotion with the world. In a world where millions of writers scream to be heard above the competition, take a focused, measured approach and use a multitude of skills to spread the word about your eBook online.
By combining this blog post with my most read article, eBook Marketing: How To Market Your Kindle Book In 2020, any writer will be able to get advice and inspiration for their next online promotion. Please read, like, and share these articles with other writers who have an upcoming release.
In the world of traditional publishing, there are professional marketers who are on hand to do this job for the writers on the books at that publisher. You may have to promote your books on your own, but it does not mean you are alone. By reaching out to people like myself in the writing community, you can find support and advice to ensure you get your next work in front of potential readers all over the world.