3 Tips for Success in E-Book Marketing

E-books are exploding. A 2012 report by publishing authority Bowker suggests more than 87,000 titles appeared between 2010 and 2011, representing a 129 percent increase in the number of e-books published over the same period.

The popularity of e-books provides obvious benefits for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and writers, offering a source of revenue, an increasingly viable business model, and a new opportunity for thought leadership among business experts and authors. With prices stabilizing and technology standardizing the publishing process, the time may be right for small businesses to experiment with this growing market.

E-book Marketing Tips

Here are three tips for success in e-book marketing that will put you ahead in this growing industry segment.

1. Watch Your Pricing Strategy

A recent post at Forbes by Jeremy Greenfield suggests that after months of fluctuation, e-book pricing seems to be stabilizing. Obviously, Greenfield is looking at average prices of bestselling e-books, so results may vary depending on how much your title is in demand. Still, looking at the $8.00 price Greenfield is using as a guide, there are clearly some takeaways.

First, Greenfield calls $10.00 a “magical threshold” e-book publishers should probably think twice before pricing above. He says few e-book readers want to pay more than $9.99 for a title. Also, few readers want to pay as much for an e-book as for the paper edition. On the other hand, Greenfield observes that customers seem willing to pay any price for an e-book they really want.

When pricing, look at comparable titles and consider how much demand there will be for your e-book.

2. Give to Get

One marketing strategy has become so widely used that even industry leaders like Amazon provide special features to facilitate the practice. Amazon’s “Give a Gift Feature” allows you to send someone a free copy of your Kindle book via e-mail. Offering e-books free for a limited time or a limited audience is an effective approach to e-book marketing.

Author and blogger Stephanie Chandler explains in a post on her Authority Publishing blog:

“If you can drive more sales to your Kindle edition by getting others to give it as a gift, the rank for your book’s sales page will improve and will ultimately lead to more visibility on Amazon, thus increasing your overall sales.”

3. Follow the Leader

At the same time, when marketing your e-book, you’ll need to follow the rules of the industry leaders who control the market.

For example, as pointed out earlier, Amazon, while certainly not the only place to market an e-book, is a huge player. As e-book writer and publisher Tristan Higbee explains in a podcast on his Osmosio blog, one of the reasons for this is Amazon’s KDP Select program, which grants publishers and authors perks in exchange for releasing new titles exclusively on Amazon for at least the first 90 days.

But Higbee reports that there’s new rule issued by Amazon penalizing affiliate websites for directing too much traffic to Amazon pages where free e-books are being promoted. The move takes away a major opportunity for publishers who want to offer their e-books free for a limited time in order to boost demand, Higbee says.

Sites offering free Kindle books like Higbee’s own fkb.me which still makes most of their money on Amazon affiliate links, would be among those affected.

Conclusion

Regardless of the limitations, e-book publishing represents an expanding opportunity for writers and publishers interested in developing an additional revenue source or in establishing authority in their fields.

Difficulties created by one publishing, distribution, or marketing platform should not stop a prospective writer or publisher from going elsewhere. There are several options from which to choose and no end in sight to the demand for new e-book titles.

About Amazon’s Kindle store, for example, Higbee writes:

“If you’re writing about internet marketing or recipes or de-cluttering, or writing about e-books or writing e-books, you’re going to face stiff competition because those niches are pretty well stocked (though there’s always room in a market for a better product). But Kindle books in most other niches are severely lacking.”

No matter what your niche, you can write e-books to help fill it and build a readership and customer base for your expertise and experience.

E-books could be the newest market for your business and a way to showcase your knowledge while building your brand.

eBook Photo via Shutterstock

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