Posted By Shawn Hessinger On March 13,
2013 @ 6:00 am In Small Business Advice
E-books
are exploding. A 2012 report by publishing
authority Bowker [1] 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 [2] 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
[3]:
“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
[4], 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 [5]
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.
E-books
could be the newest market for your business and a way to showcase your
knowledge while building your brand.
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