Marketing Your eBook
If you publish with Random House or a similar old-fashioned house, they are not going to dump a bundle of money into marketing your book unless you're "somebody" or the book gets "best seller" publicity. Generally, a first or second book has to sell itself as far as they're concerned. As is, a first book often loses money for the publisher.
The publisher will make a limited print run and send it out to the wholesalers with the rest of the books they've published at that time. The wholesaler will put your book on whatever shelf he deems best and can cajole space for. If the book doesn't sell after a period of time, the wholesaler will rip the front cover off the unsold books, trash the rest of the book, and send the cover back to the publisher for a "return" refund.
To make a first book sell, the publisher generally leaves it up to the author to do most of the marketing work. If the author just sits back and waits for the royalties to "roll in", it's unlikely that the publisher will contract for a second book.
AKW books is no different. We don't have to worry about returns, but we don't have a big ad budget to spend on first-time authors. We'll do our part, but we expect you to do yours as well. If you won't make the effort, we won't sell many copies of your book and you won't make much in royalties.
Marketing is generally a strange and uncomfortable world for most writers (unless you write about marketing). Most would rather dream dreams and bang them into their computers. The sad fact is that many otherwise talented writers never get the notice they deserve because they won't make the effort to understand and enter the marketing side of the business.
Selling your book isn't a journey into a horror movie. You can make mistakes and not get eaten by some ugly monster. Mistakes may cost your sales, but you won't die. Just keep trying until you get comfortable with the process. If you have anything on the ball (and you must have something on the ball to create a book) you'll get the hang of it.
AKW Books will:
- Immediately list your book as a "Featured Product", which is a list of our latest releases. Your book will be listed on our main shopping page and for every genre your book is listed under.
- List your book at a discount in our monthly Book Club bulletin. Book Club members will be able to purchase your book at the discount for one month.
- Market our shopping site to bring as many buyers to view our listings, including your book, as possible.
- List your book at Amazon (for Kindle sales).
- Possibly offer your books through other eBook sales sites.
- If your book sells enough copies, it will appear as a "best seller".
- Customers who have purchased your book can post a review and "vote" on the quality of your work (1 - 5 stars). Don't review or vote for your own book. That's cheating and if we catch you, we'll remove your book.
- We may run periodic sales, perhaps as part of an industry event, and discount all books for a short period of time.
What you should do:
- The absolutely best thing you can do is to get interviewed on a local TV
news show if your can sell them on the idea. If your book has a local
slant, by a local author, you may just be able to pull it off.
Radio also works well if you pick the right show (has an audience that would
be interested in your book). News jockeys are always in the market for a "local boy/girl makes good" special interest bit to offset the politics,
fires, and murders of the day. If your book can be tied into current news or
the season of the year, so much the better. The religion of Global Warming (GL) is always around if you and
your book believe in it. Remember to appeal to something the news director
is likely to approve of. If you book is about traditional (Christian)
values, America first, and conservatives win don't expect to make it past
the front door unless you have a local conservative station (country music stations may be your best bet). But if it's
world government, fighting the disaster of GL, anti-big-business,
anti-government (when the "other guys" are running it), anti-military, etc.
you may have a shot.
- But don't stop at the interview. Much of the following should be in place before you do an interview:
- Tell all your friends and acquaintances about your book. Tell them where to go to buy it. Emails are a good way to do this. Be tactful and not too shameless. Ask them to tell their circle of friends and acquaintances about your book and about AKW Books (the more people who shop with us, the more chances for your book to sell). Ask them to post a review of the book after they read it, at AKW books, Amazon, and anywhere else they happen to go.
- If you have an account on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or similar social media site, mention your book to your "friends" there and on appropriate forums (don't raid the forums, be a well-behaved and regular contributor). Start a blog on your account about yourself and how you went about writing and publishing your book.
- Read this article about social networking for authors: How Can Authors Use Online Social Networks? By Cheryl K. Tardiff.
- Here's another by the "Shameless Promoter" on how to use book collections or catalog networks .
- And an article on being professional in your marketing efforts. In fact, this is important before you make the sale to a publishing house.
- Haunt our blog for marketing ideas (there's a "marketing" tag on the right that will bring up all the articles that have marketing ideas in them).
- "Friends are gold; they'll promote you just because they know you. And if they read your work, they'll promote you even more. Friends connect you to strangers without you having to do anything. They tell two friends and so on...and so on...
Build up enough friends in your networks, and you'll build momentum. The next thing you'll know, you'll have people messaging you and asking to be friends." -Cheryl Tardiff
Read her article on adding friends to your social network.
- Create an author web site. You can talk about yourself and your book(s) along with links to the site where your book can be purchased. You can post examples of your writing (short stories, chapters from your book, etc.). If you're not comfortable dealing with a web site, you might want to spend your efforts elsewhere.
- Start a blog or forum based around your book. This gives you an opportunity to interact with your fans (and may save you from having to go through a ton of fan mail and answer the same questions over and over again). Again, make sure your readers know where to go to purchase your book. You can set up a regular blog (for free) at WordPress. You can treat this as your "author web site".
- If your book appeals to kids, you might work with schools to give talks to kids in the age group that is most likely to appreciate your book. Early grade schoolers are particularly good audiences for a well-presented talk. You can hand out autographed copies of your book cover with biographical and sales information on the back. Experiment with page sizes. If your cover is a work of art, make it large enough to frame in a standard picture frame. Who knows, some of the children may want to frame it and hang it on a bedroom wall as a keepsake. Or use autographed bookplates or bookmarks.
- Here are some of the things a cartoonist does to sell his hardbound books:
- sets up a MySpace page for each book
- sets up an Imagekind page to sell framed illustrations from the book
- promotes the book on his own web site
- gives copies to friends and family and gets them to write reviews ("unless they hate it of course")
- goes around to schools, talks about cartooning, and does book signings for kids
- every Christmas he signs a framed book illustration and auctions it off for charity which "gives me good coverage and also benefits people"
- There are several ways you can do the same thing:
- If your book isn't about artwork, you obviously can't sell framed pictures. If it does feature artwork, go for it.
- You can give copies to friends and family directly or purchase gift certificates from AKW books that they can redeem for your book. You get half the purchase price back in royalties and we can work with you to make the certificate specific for your book.
- Give a similar gift certificate to your favorite charity auction printed on the back of a signed book cover (under a peel-off sticker if you don't trust others not to copy the number an use it -- first come first served where certificates are concerned -- or give the winner a card with the number on it after the auction).
- You can sell signed book covers with a similar certificate number printed on the back at book signings or similar events. However, unless a bookstore is selling coupons for your book (and sharing in your profit), you may not be able to swing a signing at that store.
My First Book Signing by Dana Ellis
How to Have a Successful Book Signing by Judy LeBlanc
- Attend "fan" conventions (you'll probably have to pay for space), book signing events, library signing events, and market/sell your book using certificates. Make sure the buyer understands that it's an ebook.
- Get involved in GoodReads author program (free). Let us know how this works -- it's a new program.
Books on Book Marketing:
- These are recommended by Cheryl Tardif :
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