How to Sell eBooks - 10 Ways to Make Selling Your eBook Successful

The moment you approve the final layout and design, gone over every word and every image a thousand times, and are hesitantly sure you've done the best you can, it's time to start jumping on rooftops and screaming to the world just how great your work is.

Funny thought, maybe, but the truth is that no one will know about your spectacular eBook unless you're willing to put in some leg work.

Whether you will be selling your eBook via your own site, a publisher like Lulu, or through a marketplace like Etsy you will need to promote your eBook so that it can't just be found - it should attract search engines and provide useful information.

Using the promotion tips offered here will pay off. Will it require some work? Yup. You need to keep up with your customer base as well as grow one. Be prepared to spend at least a few hours a week doing a promotion step at a time per eBook you're promoting.

Before You Promote

Will Rogers said it best when he quipped, "Let advertisers spend the same amount of money improving their product that they do on advertising and they wouldn't have to advertise it."

Before you start the process of promoting your eBook (which is going to take time and work that you won't want to waste going back to fix minor things), make absolutely certain that your eBook is the best product it can be in terms of content, writing, editing, formatting, and layout.

Remember that eReaders don't require that your pages be any specific size - have fun with the layout. Ensure that it does a stellar job at highlighting really great content, both textual and graphical. In the case of eBooks, it's not just a matter of writing well and having proper grammar and punctuation. It's about creating content that engages the reader, attracts them from 'page' 1 and makes them beg for more.

If you will be creating your own mini-site to sell your eBook, fill the site with relevant information (and, actually, the relevant information is vital to selling through a service or 3rd-party site as well). People who view your page will be looking for useful information that really tells them what your book is about and why they should snag it now.

Finally, carefully think about the type of document you want to distribute your eBook in. Some services and 3rd-party sites require very specific document types, while others are more flexible. Think about your audience, and how they are most likely to be reading your book. Making it available in a format that works for them is crucial.

And with that in mind -- the most crucial of all: Promotion Tips.

10 Tips for Selling More eBooks

1. Price Competitively: Pricing your eBook will likely be an exercise in patience and perseverance. Because an eBook is an intangible product - not something people can pick up, hold in their hands, and inspect - it has a perceived value that is less than a hard-copy of the same book would have. You'll want to experiment with the prices on your eBooks, pricing them competitively with other eBooks in the same genre as yours. Some publishers, like Lulu, have found that authors who price eBooks in the $.99 - $2.99 markup range sell more often and thus earn more revenue than those in any other price range.

2. Reward Your Fans: Especially in the beginning when it's easier to track who buys copies of your work, this is a really effective promotion tool. Thank these early fans and give them incentive to tell their friends about your eBook by giving them free supplemental materials, a discount on their next purchase (if you produce multiple books), or with inexpensive promotional products that are relevant to the topic of your book.

3. Set a Marketing Budget: You know the clich© -- spend money to make money and all that. This tip comes directly from John Kremer's book, 1001 Ways to Market Your Books: "Have a clear plan of how you intend to spend your advertising dollars, reserving the major portion for your prime markets and media. Word of mouth is still the most cost-effective way to advertise your books, but set aside at least one-third of your marketing budget for promotion and publicity." Are you pulling hair already, wondering what your budget should be? Don't! Make a plan that will allow you to set aside 25%-50% of your eBook profits into marketing and promotion. Obviously, as you grow in popularity so will your promotion efforts grow - fantastic! You'll be capitalizing on your success in no time.

4. Create a Marketing Schedule: You'll never find the time to promote your eBooks (and sell more of them) if you don't put your foot down and actually spend some time marketing and promoting your eBooks. Until you hit it big-time and have a public relations firm or marketing expert on your payroll, take the time to learn the best marketing practices and actually put promotion techniques to use. Remember that nothing happens overnight, and that many writers never stop promoting their work. Create a schedule that slips neatly into your 'regular' routine and stick to it.

5. Look Into the Blogosphere: Whether you just want to write a few guest posts that are directly targeted to people interested in the topic of your book or want to try your hand at a blog of your own, don't overlook this really useful tool. Blogs are everywhere, and they're viewed constantly. Plus, if you decide to run one of your own, you can keep your fans up on what you're working on as well as what you've achieved and give links to all your writing goodness.

6. Use Social Media: Closely related to #5, social media has made the world a much smaller place - something that seriously works to your advantage in the realm of eBook promotion. Take a look at Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for a start and brainstorm how you could use these tools to your advantage. Twitter will allow you to join in on conversations related to your eBook's topic and give you a chance to chat one-on-one with your fans. Facebook has a few more options that makes it easy to give a ton of information about your book, upcoming works, and provides a place that fans can leave testimonials and reviews of your work. YouTube is perfect for the how-to book writer; what about demonstrating one project in your how-to book or provide examples of some of the top technology discussed in your sci-fi novel?

7. Teach and Talk: Consider offering classes at a local arts shop, library, or other place appropriate to your eBook's topic. These can often be arranged easily and while you may not bring in hundreds of students you will bring in enough to start word-of-mouth advertising. In addition, give talks at all types of places relevant to your book - libraries, writer's groups, churches, book fairs, book stores, colleges, workshops - anywhere that welcomes speakers and are good with the topic you'll be discussing.

8. Specialize in Your Topic: A single genre offers tons of writing topic possibilities. Don't let the idea of specializing make you feel restricted though - keep in mind that the more specialized you are in your writing field, the easier it will be to continue writing and selling your eBooks. Specializing allows you to promote your books together and build a strong reputation within your field.

9. Play With Business Cards: Get a unique business card designed (the design alone really won't cost much) and printed. Then, leave them in unexpected places like with your tip for the waitress, inside a library book, in the changing room at your gym, have the design printed on magnetic stock and place it above a crosswalk button, or 'left behind' at the post office preparation counter for example.

10. Branch Out: Book sellers and publishing partners are starting to really embrace the whole eBook phenomena. You can easily branch out through partners like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. The former two will require you format the book in a way that is compatible with their eBook readers, but you might be surprised at just how much more you sell through these reliable and respected sources.

As David Chilton, author of The Wealthy Barber, said, "If you really want your books to fly, you need to know that -- The author has to be willing to market their book, because no one else will."