Looks like you're pretty good at Google! After all, you found your way to us. Now imagine if people could find your ebook just as easily? You'd be rich, right? That's exactly why we wrote this article. We want to show you how to fast-track becoming a bestseller and ensure that your ebook gets found faster.
Learning how to market ebooks is a lot simpler than brands and websites make it out to be. With a few solid tips, important tricks, and a few key pointers, we're going to show you how to market an ebook and master ebook promotion.
Market Ebooks Successfully: Break Through the Glass Ceiling of Self-Publishing
When you're self-publishing your own book, you're going to be tasked with being in charge of everything. You're going to need to be the chef, line-cook, and bottle washer, which means triple duty management of your brand.
Have you been wondering "how do I promote my ebook on Instagram?" Confused about which social media channels to advertise your brand on? We totally get it. With so many traditional and emerging social media trends, it's difficult to understand the difference between Twitter, Tumblr, and TikTok.
To market successfully, you're going to need to target your audience.
If you're writing an ebook about seniors' gardening, you're probably not going to want to advertise your ebook on TikTok. Understanding branding and demographics will help you identify which social media platform(s) to advertise on to best suit your brand's needs and target your demographics.
Consult social media statistics to better position your book for success, while cornering the best advertising streams to bolster your brand power.
Level Up: How to Increase Your Revenue and Gain Free Promotion
When you're self-publishing ebooks that focus on genres like how-to, instruction manuals, and teaching guides, including links to products you are affiliated with can earn you additional revenue money.
When used in conjunction with niche market promotion, the incorporation of affiliate information can increase your revenues exponentially.
So, what are affiliates exactly? Affiliates are companies that pay for product placement. Much like the way you see advertising on the rink boards at hockey games, affiliates pay writers to embed their product and link into the body of their work to boost their product's earnings.
Affiliates generally pay commission on sales, and you often have to register for an affiliate link before you publish. As an added bonus, affiliates will often promote your book on their website at no cost to you. They will do this because the more books you sell, the more product they are likely to sell.
It is important to note that if you are using Kindle Direct Publishing you may only place affiliate links in your book if they are not the sole basis of the book. In other words, you cannot create content around an affiliate link solely for the purposes of placement. If the link is appropriate and adds value to the book, then it may be included.
eBook Promotion: Free Advertising and Online Promotion Ideas
Has the looming question of "how can I promote my book online for free" been keeping you up at night? There's no need to lose sleep with these free and easy ways to do some hardcore self-promotion.
From book discovery sites to SEO, there are some great ways to give your book free online promotion. Creative advertising doesn't always have to come at a cost.
Book discovery allows your book to be found by readers through websites whose main focus is recommending books to its members. Goodreads is a great example of a popular discovery book site. Offering lists and recommendations to its readers, based on preferences and habits, has made this site a bestseller all on its own.
SEO, also known as Search Engine Optimization, refers to digital keywords found in the body of online text. Crawled by search engines like Google, the presence of keywords in your text makes your website appear, or rank, in web search results.
The trick to SEO is knowing which keywords to use and where to place them. Using too many keywords can cause your site to be ignored, while too few or misplaced keywords can cause your site to be missed altogether.
So, how do you properly use SEO to get your book found?
Strategically place 3-4 keywords per 500 words on your website and in your book description content so people searching for those unique words or phrases will automatically have your book put right in front of them.
Pretty neat, hey? That's just the beginning. Mastering SEO is always a challenge, but with attention to detail, you can make great strides. Watching video tutorials that teach the principles of SEO is a terrific way to strengthen your book's description, website, blog, and online forum posts.
Become a Bestseller and Maximize Your Income Through Successful eBook Promotion
Successful ebook promotion doesn't just have to come from you. You can gain some valuable assistance through places like your digital publisher. When you promote your ebook through an online publisher like Amazon, you'll be automatically included in their marketplaces and search engines.
Online publishing communities often have limited time offers or LTOs, and bonus promotion offers for self-publishers. If taken advantage of, writers can unlock some pretty serious marketing opportunities at little or no cost to them.
Writers should include proper SEO within every available marketing opportunity. Fully capitalize on each unique circumstance by having your SEO keywords nearby or ensure that you have prewritten, SEO-friendly marketing material on hand.
If you're always on the go, our pros always save their most important marketing and SEO keywords to a free Google Drive so their info is with them wherever they go.
Successful ebook promotion is all about reputation: brand building, brand management, and brand bolstering. Your ebook promotion needs to be more than just your side hustle. True movers and shakers know that promotion is all about the long game.
Cornering the Market: How Much Should an eBook Cost?
When you make the choice to self-publish through an online platform, it's important to choose a distributor that makes sense to your brand. With a plethora of self-publishing options on the market, ensuring that you're maximizing your book's exposure and availability is key.
Whether you're choosing to publish with Amazon, Apple, or Google, you need to make sure you're abiding by their terms and conditions and adhering to their exclusivity rules.
Once you've decided which platforms your book will be available through, your next step will be determining how to price your book.
To help you determine how much your ebook should cost, many online publishers have created their own pricing guide to help you strategize your book's positioning. Pricing your ebook properly is just as important as promotion, as it ensures that your book's price is competitive and relative to your marketplace.
Amazon has launched a Beta version of its pricing analysis guide to help authors determine their ebook price. As one of the leading self-publishing companies, it's a great resource to help you determine your book's value and sales strategy.
Top 10 Tricks to Include in Your Marketing Strategy
It's great to create a successful marketing campaign, but like most authors, you're probably wondering "how do I make my ebook go viral?"
In a world dominated by online sensations, avid authors aren't settling for the status quo. Making your book go viral isn't based on luck; it's based on executing the perfect blend of marketing ingredients.
Elements such as proper ebook formatting are essential to ensuring your book is front and center on the world wide web. But formatting is just one of the key ingredients needed to get your book into the spotlight.
Here are 10 factors that, when utilized properly, are guaranteed to propel your book into the upper echelons of the marketplace.
1. Book Covers - Creating professional book covers is intrinsic to proper ebook promotion. Book covers sell books. Whether you're purchasing a premade cover, or are contracting a graphic designer, you need to ensure your book stands out and sets you apart from the competition.
2. Online Book Clubs - There are some huge online book clubs out there. Marketing your ebook directly to these groups ensures your book is gaining readers, reviews, and most importantly, marketplace positioning.
3. Advertising, PPC Ads, and Remarketing - Like all things in life, there's often a cost attached to success. Popular books often use pay-per-click ads and remarketing to advertise to potential readers. Costly, but effective when used properly, pay-per-click ads buy their way to the top of search engines so your book is always landing in a top spot.
4. Marketing to Libraries - While the idea of going to a library may seem antiquated, traditional libraries all have their own ebook subscriptions built right into their user's library card access. Getting your book on a library's platform means an increase in readership, reviews, and above all else, will help you gain notoriety.
5. Branding - Want to know the secret to marketing success, regardless of what product you're selling? It's branding. You need to be a brand first, and a product second. It doesn't matter how well your book is written if you can't get anyone to read it. From color schemes and fonts to layouts and wording, your brand is what will ultimately sell your book.
6. Multimedia - Don't kid yourself, content is king. Multimedia, such as video, ads, interviews, and video reviews will help grow your book's popularity. People want to see what your book is all about, not read about it. Make sure your product is properly represented across all mediums by having a dedicated video channel for your brand.
7. Influencers - You've heard of them, but do you know what they do? Influencers basically tell people what's cool and what's not. They push brands and products to consumers through social media channels and sell products through the power of suggestion. If you can get an influencer to back your brand, you'll have garnered yourself some much-wanted attention.
8. Quora - Did you know that Quora's questions are ranked on Google? Find the most popular questions that relate to your book and respond to them. Answer questions such as "how to market an ebook" and plug your book using SEO in your answer. Not only will your answer gain tons of free views, but it will be indexed to Google for the whole world to find.
9. Create a Website for Your ebook - You need a website. In case you missed that, we'll say it again. You need a website. Not only does a website help readers find you faster, but it validates your book and brand by adding professionalism to your marketing. All great products have websites. If you're determined to make your book a bestseller, having a proper, professional, and functional website is vital.
10. Reputation Management - You need readers to leave you reviews. Ensuring your book continues to receive reviews is absolutely required if you want your book to sell. Readers trust the opinions of other readers and they'll look at reviews before they buy.
You can provide your book free of charge to book clubs, readers, influencers, and critics in exchange for impartial reviews. However you approach it, getting reviews for your book is an absolute must.
Be a Brand First and an Author Second: Why Pen Names, Titles, and Words Matter
We've said it before and we'll say it again, if you want to be a bestseller, you need to build your brand. People buy brands. By creating and selling your brand first, you'll unlock incredible earnings.
Books and book series, like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Babysitter's Club, and The DaVinci Code, all have one thing in common. They're all brands.
Creating a brand that's both memorable and unique will earn you more money, greater book sales, and immediate recognition in the future. When your business is bestsellers, brand power is your ultimate weapon.
How Do I Get My Book Noticed? Give Your Audience What They Want
When you're building your brand, making a name for yourself can be as easy as starting with a pen name that sticks. Catchy pen names make your books easy to find because readers are able to recall the name of the author from memory.
Choose a pen name that works with your brand and demographic. Catchy, cute, and rhyming pen names are terrific for younger audiences and light-hearted genres, while pen names that use one-syllable first names or initials bode well for more serious genres and adult demographics.
From building your brand right down to your pen name, it's all about giving your audience what they want. Readers want an experience before they even open your book.
Whether you're creating video for your blog or a website for your ebook, writers need to ensure they're giving their readers a branded experience that reflects their book's character.
The Bigger the Brand, the Better the Business: Serial Writing Tips
If you want to build a brand that thrives on content, being able to write enough to keep up with your reader's appetite can be challenging.
Ghostwriters are the perfect way to feed your audience while you focus on your brand's main titles. By focusing on your most important works yourself, you can hire ghostwriters to pen your secondary ideas and less popular stories.
Not all authors have all bestsellers. Creating consistent and accessible content in a timely fashion will keep your brand relevant in between your brand's bestselling releases and titles.
Ghostwriters can cost you a pretty penny, and choosing a ghostwriter that can replicate your style can take time. Make sure you invest in a professional ghostwriting service that has a solid reputation and is known for its attention to detail.
Never Work Again: How to Market eBooks Effectively
Say goodbye to your nine-to-five and never work again by building your brand from the ground up. Start with one solid book idea and run with it. Pay attention to the details and position your book in the marketplace properly.
Your first book will set the tone for your brand and any subsequent franchises, so it's important to champion your marketing from your very first launch day.
The secret to success is in the details, and promoting your ebook effectively is all about perfecting your recipe. Don't leave any key ingredients out, and pay close attention to how your recipe reacts to its environment.
Your brand is bestsellers, and bestsellers are a business. Champion your brand power with effective marketing and successful product placement.
