Why You Need To Market Your Ebook

 

When I published my first book on Amazon I was so excited! I held my finger over the submit button to with anxiety. Will people like my book? Will people read my book? I learned a lot in the weeks to come after I pushed this button. I learned that unless you are super famous, you will need to market and hustle to get your book read!

 

In this blog post, you will learn:

– Why you need to market your Ebook

-Why you should market your book before you actually publish or even start writing your book

-What is a launch team

-How a launch team improves your self-publishing success

Why You Need To Market Your Ebook:

I hit the submit button on my first self-published book thinking that sales would naturally come. I waited…and waited…and waited. No sales! Several weeks passed by and still there were no sales. That is when it hit me, that I had not built a name for myself. Without creating a brand and authority, why would anyone want to listen to me!

But how do I create my authority or brand? Through marketing of course! 

Amazon is currently one of the largest and most popular markets to buy and publish paperback books and Ebooks. In 2014, there were 3.4 million books published on Amazon according to Techcrunch.com. That’s a lot of competition for someone without a following!

It’s easy for your book to get lost in all of this competition. Besides the sheer volume of books published, there are also special algorithms that Google and Amazon set to allow for only the most popular books to be easily discovered. And by popular, I mean only a book that has lots of reviews, lots of positive reviews, and big sales will be “popular” and easily found on Amazon.

For example, Amazon has a “Best Sellers” marketplace for both free and paid books. If you have sold lots of books, then your book will make it on this easily to view best sellers list. Amazon also sends out emails with “recommended” books, which are often books with high volumes of sales.

 

How can you get lots of people to buy or review your book if you are a brand new author?

Truth is, its hard! And that’s why you need to market your book and make it visible to the world. Because Amazon and the big internet search engines wont help you at first.

 

Thats why you should market your book before you actually publish or even start writing your book!

I learned from my first book that I needed to market my book to my friends, family, and healthcare community. But I also realized that I should have been marketing my book even before it was published! Because, after I published my book-I really didn’t have any followers or fans. If you market your book while you are writing it, at least you will be collecting some potential readers along the way. So that when you do publish, there will be people waiting to get your book.

 

3 Things I Would Have Done To Market My Book Before It Was Published:

1. I would have created my Facebook group long before it was published.

You want to grow a loyal fan base. In order to do this, your readers have to know and respect you. I have learned that email marketing is great, but it doesn’t really connect you with your readers. As a result, building a strong community and Facebook is one of the best platforms currently to do this! In addition, Facebook is free and it takes about 2 min to set up a group!

2. Turn my blog posts into book chapters and modify my book chapters into blog posts:

I should have been turning my chapters into modified blog posts, or turning my blog posts into modified chapters. I should have been writing about my process and what I was learning. Using materials you have already written, and modifying them or repurposing them, will save you valuable time and enable you to grow you reader base quicker!

3. Build A Launch Team:

I wish I would have built a launch team to help market my book and any future books! When you are growing any business, its important to learn to how to “divide and conquer”. Its important to learn how to ration all of your marketing, emailing, blogging, and writing! Trust me, you cant do it all! And if you are doing it all, you are probably pulling your hair out and wondering if this is the right path for you!

What is a launch team?

I mentioned above, that I wish I would have created a “launch team” earlier. A launch team are a series of people who are going to be your fans and your marketing boots on the ground. Here are some of the things they can help you with:

They comment to your posts with happy faces or positive reviews

They can review your books

They can like or follow your Facebook and other social media groups

They can share your posts and messages to their social media channels and friends

They can provide input to your projects, such as approving your posts, your book topics, your book cover and more!

I think you get the picture….

How does a launch team improves your self-publishing success? 

A launch team, most importantly, increases your visibility.  When you create a launch team, you are increasing the number of potential readers and viewers because you now get to reach the network of each of your launch team members. For example, say I have 50 friends. That’s only 50 people that may see my book. If I add Bob who has 20 friends, Sally who has 50 friends, and Dan who has 10 friends, now I have my 50 viewers plus Bob’s 20, Sally’s 50, and Dan’s 10. I went from 50 to 130 people who may now see my content.

This is FREE visibility! You do not need to pay your launch team, simply include them in your process. Each time they share your posts or books, this is the same as if you were to pay for a Facebook ad, except this is free!

This is also often more EFFECTIVE! Using launch team members to vouch for you, comment positively on your ideas over social media channels, and promote you-they are creating more authority than you could for yourself. Here’s an example, I say that I am the best tennis player in New Jersey. Would you take my word? Say Bob and Sally chime in, and say “Yes, she is the best tennis player in New Jersey!”. Now are you going to believe me?   People tend to believe someone who has followers, and the best followers as you initially start your business and self publishing career, is your launch team.

Lastly, this is also so much more EFFICENT! Think if you had to post on all the different social media channels, comment on every post related to your topic, and try to market to new audiences by yourself. It would be very difficult! With your launch team, you post once and then have your team share your content over the internet.  It would also be not a good use of your time, to spend hours learning Pintrist or twitter if you already have launch team members who are active on twitter and other social media accounts! You send your time creating content, while they learn the different marketing platforms and promote your content for you.

Summary:

Publishing your first book is easy! It is time consuming and takes effort, but once you write your book- its done. The much harder part I have learned is to market your book. And even harder, to continue to market your book to grow your audience!