So you committed to writing an e-book and have finally completed it after slogging away for hours on end? Congratulations, you have managed an impressive feat!
The work doesn’t end here. There’s more to it than reaching your desired e-book word count. You need to make sure all that hard work doesn’t go unnoticed. To do this, you need to figure out how to market your e-book. This is a surefire way of getting the attention of e-publishers.
If you’re a tad confused as to how to go about it, you’re not alone. This step can overwhelm a lot of writers.
Revisit Your E-Book With Fresh Eyes
This recommendation comes assuming that you’ve organized yourself and your book. This also includes developing and referring to a solid outline while writing. Then and only then can you claim to be in a comfortable spot with your e-book.
When we advise you to revisit your e-book, we’re not telling you to go back to the drawing board. We’re simply emphasizing the fact that once the writing process has ended, it is important to read the book in its entirety. You don’t have to get to it immediately; give yourself a week or so.
During this period of willful detachment, you will be giving yourself a much-needed break. You will also let the book percolate in your mind. This is necessary because it lets your critical eye come to the fore and think about any loopholes, problematic areas, or redundancies in your writing.
If you want eBook publishers to stop and take notice, you can’t afford to skip this step. Quality is the name of the game. Even if your e-book has a riveting plot, it’s not enough to sell copies. E-book publishers are looking for a finished product, not something half-baked and rife with grammatical errors.
Word Count
As long as there’s a story with a decent plotline, word count doesn’t matter in an e-book.
That said, a good piece of fiction should have a benchmark of at least 70,000 words. Don’t resort to filling up your e-book just for the sake of reaching that number.
Assess your e-book and see if there’s anything that needs more detail. If you’re unsure, ask a fellow author or someone from your target audience to give it a read and provide honest, helpful feedback.
Summon the Powers of Social Media
Does this even warrant an explanation?
There is a place for everything on social media. In the context of your e-book, you should go all out and use all possible platforms to your advantage. That said, you need to make sure the avenues you’re choosing are relevant to your genre and your intended target audience.
Your audience and genre will automatically help you filter out some platforms. When it comes to marketing, even selecting the wrong platform can project badly on your e-book. You don’t want that, do you?
Consider this. If you’ve written something in the YA category, you should market your e-book through Instagram and TikTok. To add other relevant platforms to your marketing roster, you should do your due diligence on each by running a search about active users by age.
Moreover, e-book publishers want to know how many followers you have across all your socials. They will also assess your engagement on these platforms. If the numbers are promising, this lets them know how well your e-book will do. A win-win situation for both parties.
Build an Author Website
Your website should be the main artery when it comes to online presence. All your socials should guide followers back to it.
An author’s website is essential in the grand scheme of things because it lends an air of professionalism and credibility. Every business and every writer has a dedicated website. This is non-negotiable, and not having a website can paint you in a poor light.
Book Trailer
Like a movie trailer, but for your e-book!
If you’re looking to jazz up your marketing campaign, book trailers are the way to go. However, proceed with caution because, for all the oomph they promise, book trailers can do the exact opposite. This is only if not done right, so it’s all about how you plan to design and edit it.
Book trailers carry great potential as part of your marketing strategy and add value to the overall campaign. The best part is that it lends a virality aspect to your marketing campaign. If done well, it can bring in a lot of shares and retweets. You want to generate talkability around your e-book, and book trailers can be an effective way of doing so.
An excellent way to minimize risk is by doubling down and doing some research. Find out what format book trailers generally follow and how much room they receive in terms of creativity. Not all e-books are the same, so book trailers can’t be the same either.
Once you’ve managed to get the above down pat, write down the things that set your book apart. In other words, what is the unique selling proposition (USP) of your e-book? What makes it stand out? Why should people read it? If it’s part of a series, weave that in as well.
Ideally, book trailers should be part of the pre-launch marketing strategy. Better yet, you can make two. One can be a teaser, and the other can feature more gripping details.
Share Excerpts From Your E-Book
Use excerpts from your book and use them as promotional material.
The best part about this is that you won’t have to write new content to market your e-book. This is where strong writing plays a part. If you were still wondering why we started this piece by advising you to polish your writing…now you know.
Snippets from your e-book will tease audiences and draw them in. You can take it a step further and record sound bites of chosen excerpts. This can do wonders to increase your audience engagement. Readers will feel as though they know you. Even if you don’t lend your voice for the purpose, the content will still prove engaging. They will also share these clips and contribute towards organically expanding your readership. The promotion will take care of itself.
The cherry on top is that you can use these clips later if your e-book ever has an audio version.
Focus on Characters
This is especially helpful if your e-book is a work of fiction and features well-written characters with elaborate backstories. Even without the latter, you can use these characters and create short profiles complete with avatars (it’s up to you).
To take things up a notch, you can do character reveals on your social media platforms. You will leave your audience guessing, making for a great engagement.
Team Up With Fellow Writers
Networking can take you a long way, and e-book marketing is no different. How many contacts you have in the industry will serve you well when approaching e-publishers.
This is not something you can do immediately, so you should ideally be investing in relationships with similar authors online. You can promote their work as and when you can. When the time comes, you can request the same from them. Of course, you don’t want to seem desperate. Depending on how well you know them, you can choose to drop them an email or a DM.
Get Search Engines to Work in Your Favor
We’re talking about e-books, so it’s crucial to capture the digital realm in all possible ways.
Whether someone looks up your e-book through Google or on Amazon, optimizing your e-book for SEO will serve you well.
Use appropriate keywords in the title and meta title. Do the same for image alt text. Your e-book should also feature a description using these keywords. This will display your e-book in search results, guiding readers to stop and take a look.
Write Guest Posts
It’s time to do what you do best – write.
You can feature as a guest writer on blogs that are relevant to your e-book and its audience. This will be all the more helpful if you’re struggling to build an organic following. As we’ve said earlier, this is important for e-publishers who will ask whether or not your e-book will sell.
Start by identifying a few blogs that fit the criteria mentioned above, and reach out to them. Be sure to attach a sample of your writing. Tell them why you’re an authority on the subject you wish to write about, and they should get back to you sooner than you think.
This may be a time-intensive process leaving you with more misses than hits, but it’s important to stay determined.
They will likely look you up online, and seeing your website, updated socials, and writing samples should seal the deal.
Paid Advertising
We saved this one for the end because it’s the only one that comes at a price.
If you wish to reach many people in a short time, fork over some money to Google and Facebook. You will have several options to customize your ad based on location, age, and interests, to name a few. You will also be able to opt for the kind of ad you wish to have.
Conclusion
There you have it,—ten easy and effective tips and tricks to promote your e-book. A word of advice – it’s not set in stone that you should start working on promotions only after you’re done writing. Utilize pockets of time effectively to stay abreast of marketing strategies to create a truly customized plan.
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