9 Most Effective and Easy Ways to Market an eBook

According to Statista about 41% Americans read more than 15 eBooks per year.

The competition between online eBook retailers has created an attractive opportunity for publishers and enterprises to enlist their digital publications on these online websites. Marketing and distributing through these stores give advantages of an extended reach both geographically and demographically.

Partnering with platforms like Amazon, Nook, Kobo, and iBooks to catalog and list all your eBooks, does not guarantee you the sales needed to achieve business objectives. Millions of eBooks exist over these platforms and are increasing at a rapid pace on daily basis.

Several marketing tasks are required to ensure you get a significant number of eBooks into distribution.

The aim of this article is to walk you through ways in which you can market and differentiate your offerings in the clutter created by competition and distribute your eBooks.

Chalking a detailed marketing plan including activities you plan on doing along with its date of release can help in benchmarking results for further projects. One needs to identify the target audience, find out opinion leaders in that domain, select social media platforms according to the presence of the target audience and finalize a launch date for the eBook.

Blogs are considered sources of individualized information and a tool to share experiences. Creating a blog before the launch of the eBook and posting regularly will help you get in touch with audiences with similar interests. By blogging you can engage with a large audience, which can be an advantage when the eBook is launched. One can also venture into guest blogging to attract the audience to their eBook.

An Individual with a large number of followers on either a social media platform or a blog becomes an influencer or an opinion leader about the topic of their expertise. Getting in touch with influencers with a strong following to review your eBook in exchange for a monetary benefit or barter can generate buzz around your eBook; encouraging their followers to make the purchase.

Automated email campaigns can create awareness about your upcoming eBook. An email to individuals from your prospect database even before the launch will create buzz around the eBook and awareness about the author. An email on the day of launch, with a link to purchase the eBook, can generate increased traffic and boost the chances of conversion on the store.

Unpaid as well as paid press releases can help you reach out to prominent news outlets which can create awareness around the author and their upcoming eBooks along with providing information about how one can purchase the eBook.

Creating a giveaway contest before the launch of the eBook can attract a number of visitors to a website landing page. A specially created landing page can consist of a lead generation form which asks for some details from an individual. This page will not only yield visitors but also help in creating a list of interested prospects. Out of the entire prospects list, one individual who manages to create maximum social media engagement as a part of the call to action strategy can stand a chance to win the giveaway.
An alternative to giving away an eBook for free can be creating a giveaway for only the first chapter of your eBook, which can generate interest and appeal the reader to purchase the eBook.

Pay per click (PPC) ad campaigns on search engine results pages (SERPs) or social media platforms like Facebook optimized by search keywords can boost the visitors on your landing page and generate leads. Filtering audience according to their interest to narrow down on a group who you believe is your target buyer has to be done. These leads can later be nurtured with email campaigns.

Giving away copies of your eBooks for reviews in exchange can create quality online word of mouth on various online eBook retail sites encouraging individuals who read the reviews to make the purchase.

Using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to post, interact and engage with like-minded individuals can bring in more traffic to the website through social bookmarking and create awareness around your upcoming eBook.

Creating and distributing great content through eBooks can only generate limited sales. Good understanding of online marketing methodologies on creating and harnessing traffic is an added advantage to achieve business objectives. Utilizing all online platforms strategically to create awareness about the eBook before and after launch for increased conversions is the correct route to take.