Digital Marketing

Promoting Your “Posted on Amazon” Book or Ebook Online

You have just been through the work and excitement of completing your first book or ebook and are ready to show it to the world. Now, you have to spread the word and try to get some buyers. This, by the way, is just as exhausting, if not more, than writing the book in the first place. You will soon realize that you have to dig deep into yourself to market what you’ve created for others to make the sales. An author I know when asked once how they managed to sell their books so well said. “It’s easy. Write it down, post it where people can buy it, and then promote it for about 3 years.”

In this article I don’t plan to discuss the myriad of things you can do offline to promote your creation, like book signing, getting a table at trade shows to display your book and giving away autographed copies, trying to get retailers. sell it (if you have created a bound version), etc. The tips provided below are written to help you get maximum publicity for your book or e-book online.

Let’s start with building your online sales strategy. Where will you put your book to sell it?

The most popular option on the Internet is Amazon. This is a very good first step for many books, especially e-books. Amazon owns Kindle Books, the de facto leader in e-book marketing and distribution. Everyone has heard of Kindle and there are literally millions of Kindle readers that people can use to read their e-book not to mention that Kindle book reading software is available for computers, tablets, and even mobile devices, so it is very useful. easy to distribute and make your creation accessible to others. Amazon also owns “Create Space”, a second entity that can turn your e-book into a bound book that can also be sold on Amazon-Kindle and through distributors worldwide. If you want to “market for a fee” your book through Amazon? You can also do it by creating one of your advertising campaigns at cheap prices.

By going through this process, you will also get an ASIN number for your book or an ISBN number for your book if you want to go down that path (necessary for selling printed books through Create Space, but not for e-books that have just been sold on Amazon -Kindle). You can also enroll your book in the Kindle KDP Select program, which is like an online library that people pay a monthly subscription to and you can get additional royalty payments for your book from here based on the number of pages read. You can also get Amazon promotional banners that you can put up on your website or blog and even send emails to people to further promote your book.

The bottom line is, to get started, Amazon: Kindle has a lot to offer a new self-publisher. You can literally publish your book in less than a week and start making money from it if people buy it.

But you will have to work harder for your book to actually sell and start generating income. Your book will hit Amazon OK, but it must be viewed and desired for you to make sales. There are books that have been there for years without any sales, so don’t think you’re done once you’ve published your book and it’s on the site. You have to help make sales happen by promoting them. So below is a list of things you should also do yourself online to get people to go to the page you bought on Amazon to buy your book.

  • Make sure to create your author profiles on Amazon Central and on book review sites like “Good Reads.” At Good Reads, also be sure to include your book in the “Listopia” program, so learn how. Find other sites of similar authors and make your name known too.
  • Consider posting an online press release about your book as well. Make sure you have back links to places where people can see and buy your book. Take a look at “Reddit” as a possible site for this.
  • Promote your book on different social media platforms like Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, etc.
  • Consider creating a YouTube channel and creating a promotional video for your book with backlinks to where your book can be purchased.
  • Create your own “Author” blog site to further promote your book. Surf the internet for links to your site or book through guest posts, article writing, etc.
  • Get an automated email marketing and autoresponder system and use it to help promote your book – build your email subscriber lists!
  • Consider posting a podcast series to iTunes where you can have “podcast discussions” about the content of your book. FYI: Once you’ve created some of these, put a picture of your book in front of them and upload them to your YouTube channel as well as “Video Podcasts.”
  • Keep posting and guest posting and getting in touch with people. The more people know about you and your book, the better your sales will be. Build bridges with other authors (EzineArticles and Good Reads are good places to do this), with book critics, people who are knowledgeable about your “book space”, and so on. Make yourself known out there.
  • Create a Facebook Business Page for your book and put your Author’s “Good Reads” button on your Facebook Pages to get people back to your Author Page on GoodReads. Promote your book on Facebook using the “Boost Post” feature – This is a very inexpensive marketing platform with excellent targeting capabilities.
  • Make sure to go to Google+ and create your profile there. Then find and join various communities related to your subject area and also related to other authors – become a positive content contributor for these communities.

In short, if you can follow all of the steps above to promote your book online, you are well on your way to starting to build the foundation you need to start generating income for your book. Good luck in your writing career.

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