You have finally done it, you have finished that ebook and it is perfect in every way. Every grammatical error has been caught and corrected, the wording has been polished, and you couldn’t be more thrilled with the final product.
There is nothing left to do but release it online and let it be consumed by the masses. You will be the next Internet legend, a literary genius that got their start on the web, the modern-day writer’s dream.
Only one problem: you don’t know how to do that. Just putting it online isn’t enough to get your ebook seen, and especially read. Here are some seven steps that should help spread your work around.
1. Promote Your eBook On Your Site
Your site is your ultimate personal brand destination: You want to consolidate everything you do online there, including your ebook. Your loyal readers are your best promoters. They will buy/download your eBook and spread your word. These are your first promoters.
Create a landing page on your site that allows people to pick it up next time they are browsing. Make the notice speaking about it clear and easy to see (as well generously promote it using internal linking).
On top of all, optimize your landing page for organic visibility to – hopefully, one day – achieve a steady stream of traffic and references. In other words, implement basic SEO.
Remember that search engines search by keywords, not book titles. Identify searchable keywords you can optimize your landing page for using these steps and then put together a landing page putting those keywords inside prominent page elements:
To create a search-optimized landing page, use Text Optimizer which is a semantic analysis tool that helps you create content meeting search engines’ and users’ expectations:
Text Optimizer extracts search snippets and uses semantic analysis to identify related concepts and relationships between them. You can use Text Optimizer as a writing assistant as it helps you discover topics to cover and build sentences to include them.
If you consider turning book writing into a full-time profession, set up a mini-site around your occupation. Here are some great themes to sell eBooks.
2. Use Social Media
Social media is going to be your best friend in this task. Your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Reddit… any channel you can find that will let you built up the awareness.
In the weeks leading up to your ebook release be sure to regularly talk about it. Offer a chapter or section to read, quotes from the book, giveaways to get it before it is launched and anything else you can think of to get a buzz going.
You don’t just want yourself speaking about the book, but you want others to as well. Encourage your social networking followers to share out the announcement, find people who are willing to write a post about it on their blog, give it its own official Twitter hashtag and get people talking about it.
Implement visual marketing tactics, try Tweet chat marketing, etc. – social media marketing has lots of forms and tactics. Play with as many of them as your time allows.
Promote your free chapter via Viral Content Bee: You cannot promote lead generation landing pages there (as the moderators will likely reject promotional content) but you can give away your free chapter and build some buzz with help of VCB community.
In the weeks leading up to your ebook release be sure to regularly talk about it.3. Get Featured by Bloggers
You can get some reviews published through MyBlogU. It works like this: You can write book reviews yourself and wait for bloggers to request to feature any of them.
The idea is genius as it’s absolutely the opposite of how it normally works (where the book authors go to pitch the bloggers) as in this case, bloggers come and request to feature your book!
4. Give It Away For Free
This one is good for brand new writers who have never self-published before. Sometimes the best thing to do is offer it for free for a short period of time.
This will give it a chance to build its own reputation, and get people talking about the actual content of the book. Once some people have read and liked it, you can start charging for it (or offer premium upgrades to your current readers). But by then it will have stirred up some curiosity.
If you are giving it away for free, consider driving increased exposure from that by inviting people to pay with a tweet or a like. This is such a cool idea, and it is becoming incredibly popular these days. You offer the ebook for a like on Facebook or a tweet on Twitter. That way it is free to the reader, but it will help spread the word and get more people to check it out.
Tools:
5. Offer It On Amazon (And Beyond)
Amazon has a decent program for independent writers. It even includes the ability for Prime members to borrow books, which could be a good way to get ratings without actually offering it for free for everyone.
Amazon is not the only platform driving sales to independent writers (albeit it’s probably the most effective one). There are more platforms to help you sell your book:
6. Create An Affiliate Program
Having an affiliate network that helps promote your book is an invaluable resource. Try starting your own rewards program with other sites/blogs/social media pages. This will also allow you to network for future marketing collaborations when you publish another volume.
You can easily launch your own affiliate program using tools like PayKickstart. Read the whole instruction here.
7. Get Some Reviews
People reviewing your work is your the most important marketing asset. Offering your book on a retailer like Amazon will give people the chance to review your stuff.
But you can also buy sponsored reviews from blogs, which is a good way to reach out to an already established reader base through a voice they trust. Just be sure you pitch the review to relevant blogs and be prepared to offer a free copy.
Furthermore, whenever you pay for a review, don’t forget to include a formal disclosure for the bloggers’ readers to know this review was sponsored. It is very important for your brand to be transparent in your marketing initiatives:
Have a tip for promoting an ebook? Let us know in the comments.
Recommended Reading
How to Achieve Bestseller Status with Your First Book
How to Sell Books by the Truckload on Amazon – Adventures in Visibility with Penny Sansevieri
I think my favorite idea on this is to use pay with a tweet. It’s a great way to get more visibility for your ebooks AND other free content.