Tips for Marketing Your eBook in the Crowded Digital Space

When an author writes “The End” on the last page, that is just the beginning. Every author dreams of having a best seller. As a publisher, agent, or bookseller, you have the same hopes for the writers you represent. eBooks have made it even more viable to share a writer’s work. It’s easy to publish in the digital world, but marketing your eBook is a different story. Readers have to be able to find that gem among the thousands of titles released each year.

According to Bowker, the official ISBN Agency for the United States, print isn’t dead. People are still purchasing hard cover books, trade, and mass-market paperbacks, but the eBook market increased their market share from seven to eleven percent between 2011 to 2012.

Small Press Publishers

Some of the finest books have come from the smaller publishing houses, the literary publishers and the University presses. You may not have the funds to hire a marketing team, but even if your books aren’t mainstream you can still use some of their concepts. For example, Sony recently came up with a new strategy to market their eBooks on their website by categorizing them by mood, or “Emotion Match- Ups”. If you are feeling adventurous, heartbroken or conflicted, there is a book to match your emotion.

Social media marketing takes work, but it doesn’t cost anything. Interns are a great resource for marketing. Young people who want to enter the publishing world are eager to work at your publishing house and spread the word through social media and mobile.

More people are reading eBooks on their iPhones or other mobile devices.  Why not share your latest titles with the commuter on the subway train or the mother looking for a bedtime book for her child?

Online retailers, most prominently Amazon, accounted for 44 percent of all books sold to the American public in 2012. This was partially due to the demise of Borders retail stores. Posting positive reviews of your works on Amazon and other literary sites and urging your readers to post their own reviews brings up your numbers.

The majority of readers are women. They purchased 58 percent of all publishing formats in 2012. Let’s face it, there is a gender divide when it comes to reading. How many men form book clubs where they get together at friends’ homes to discuss a book over a glass of wine, or a coffee and homemade treats? Women will spread the word about your book, but you have to let them know about it through a strong email marketing campaign.

Self Publishing

The pull of the eBook is being felt by more than readers. Writers are self-publishing more books than every before, and they are doing it through eBooks. The vanity press or the print-on-demand book has become digitized. The stigma of self-publishing has evolved. The millennial generation blog, record and share their own music online. They self-publish zines and chapbooks and they are using this medium to share their uncensored work.

It’s inexpensive to publish your own eBook, but that doesn’t mean it is going to be noticed in the mass of offerings online. Some self-published books have been picked up by the big publishing houses and turned into best sellers, but these are few and far between. The major problem with self-publishing is that you lack the ability to market your book effectively.

An effective marketing campaign is crucial to the success of your eBook. No matter what business we are in, it’s difficult to take rejection or feel that no one is interested in our work. Writers are very familiar with this feeling. Whether you are a small press, a self publisher or a larger press, email marketing allows you to reach your readers in a timely manner with targeted emails that match your new title to the men and women interested in that genre.

Your can connect your social media and mobile marketing with eBook emails and newsletters. Include interviews with authors, links to videos or news about the latest book signings or author appearances. By using a service that offers secure email and document delivery in the cloud, you can offer customers a safe environment to learn more about your titles while protecting your valuable property.

Is your eBook marketing campaign falling flat? iPost Strategic Services provides on-demand connected digital marketing solutions to help you create and implement effective email marketing, social media and mobile campaigns. The experts at iPost have over a decade of experience providing integrated B2B and eCommerce marketing solutions. Contact us for an analysis of your email campaign.