Easy E-Book Promotion Tips

By Lisa Maliga
Posted Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Once your e-book is sold and on the publisher’s web site, don’t expect the sales to come rolling in. Unless you have a huge network of family and friends with credit cards and PayPal accounts at the ready, you’re not likely to rack up much in the way of sales without promoting your book.

Here are five tips to getting people to notice your novel or non-fiction book and click onto that site and stock up on your title[s].

The Signature Line. [AKA Sig Line]. Unlike the scrawl that many authors use to sign their correspondence and autographed copies, the Signature Line is the blurb you always add to the bottom of your e-mail. The best Signature Lines have your name or pseudonym, the URL of your book, a catchy one or two-sentence blurb, and your homepage address [if you have one]. Acceptable lengths range from two to six lines. You’ll need to experiment with what type of font to use, and if there should be color or not. Sometimes you can use two different fonts. For example, the Amazone BT, Kaufmann, Lucida Handwriting or Park Avenue fonts make terrific simulations of handwriting. The choice of lettering is vast and it can help reflect the tone of your book. Creepy is the name of the “blood-dripping” font, and Curlz MT is commonly used to invite younger visitors. WONTON ICG can add an Oriental touch and Storybook might help that fantasy or romance novel attract more interested readers.

However, not all e-mail programs are able to discern unique fonts/colors so don’t overdo it! What all e-mail addresses should be able to pick up is the URL. This should be written out in its entirety, always beginning with (http://www.nameofbook.com). To link your book to the WWW at large, make certain it goes to your author page. Sending a person to (http://www.bookcompany.com) and expecting them to find your book will cost you potential buyers. People online have very short attention spans. Always make it as easy for them to find your book as possible.

Another way to make your signature line stand out is by adding some of your deathless prose in the form of a blurb. For my soap making book, THE JOY OF MELT & POUR SOAP MAKING, I came up with just six words: ‘Buy it today … make suds tomorrow!’ Sometimes you’ll want to use a quote directly from your e-book, or a line of dialogue. Movie posters are excellent sources of inspiration. Think of the memorable line from STAR WARS -- “May the force be with you” or “A hero will rise” from the recent Academy award-winning movie GLADIATOR.

Your Own Web Page or Web Site. Any e-book author must be able to communicate to potential online buyers that not only are they a legitimately published writer, but what their book is about. Whether you choose to have a single page offering a description of your book or go to a flashy web site with room to highlight not only your book, the first chapter or two, a guestbook, links, chatroom, your favorite recipes, etc., your budget may be such that going with a free web host is all you can afford. While Writers’ Web Designs offers very reasonable design and hosting rates, Tripod, GeoCities, AOL and MSN, along with many others, don’t charge you a penny to have a web presence. Whether you have a hankering to work with HTML or want a simple site that’s as easy as AOL’s 1-2-3 Publish, that decision is yours. Surf the web, particularly other writers’ web sites, and see how each author has a unique place on the Internet. When designing yours, always remember your goal: to sell copies of your e-book[s].

Join e-groups. Yahoo is where you’ll find online communities on a myriad of subjects. And if you don’t find what you’re looking for, you can always create your own. The purpose of joining e-groups is to let people know your e-book exists. Therefore, if you wrote a novel, you’ll want to persuade readers to take a look at your book. You don’t want to hard sell them, risking ejection from the group, but you do want to get a feel of the online community and ease into your promotional tactic. If you’ve written a non-fiction book about the Civil War, you’ll want to investigate any group affiliated with that time period. Should your e-book be concerned with saving the whales, the groups that are environmentally conscious, along with whale lovers associations, are categories to check out. Fiction writers can become associated with other authors, but don’t expect to rack up too many sales from them! You will oftentimes receive excellent advice and probably make countless online pals. Always read what the group’s rules are and follow them. For example, I’m a member of a few soap making e-groups and know which ones accept advertising and those that forbid any type of promotion.

Write Articles. You have a distinct advantage over someone who doesn’t like crafting words and wants to sell their product online but can’t even think up an opening sentence, let alone several hundred words worth of literate text. Depending upon the subject of your e-book, you can always count on one thing – you’re the resident expert when it comes to that book you wrote. Should you have a hide-under-the-covers horror story or a derring do romance/adventure saga, you can always find an online outlet to freely market your tale. You might write about the geographical aspects of your book’s Scottish setting in a travel magazine or on a Scottish online site. Maybe your book on how to crochet will be widely received by the crocheting community after you contribute an article [with a byline including your book’s URL of course!] to a crafting site. Well-written articles are always appreciated and as long as you have a byline, you’ll notice an increase in sales.

Yahoo Display Classified Ads While there are many places online that offer free classifieds, Yahoo display classifieds are definitely a good place to begin. Why? Yahoo is well known. The ads are free. You can include a photo of your book’s cover. And you can see how many people actually looked at your advertisement. Just remember it runs for 30 days and it has to be renewed monthly.

Due to space limitations I can only list the other methods of online e-book promotion such as getting reviews, sending out press releases, posting on message/bulletin boards, and being interviewed. Remember, the more time you devote to publicizing your e-book, the more sales that are likely to result from your efforts.

About the Author
For more information about Lisa Maliga’s writing, e-publishing, onsite newsletter, unique recipes and various other topics, visit Lisa’s Library of Writing at (http://www.lisamaliga.com).