As a new ePublisher, we were really excited to launch our website, first book, etc. We planned carefully and made sure that readers could find the book on our site as well as Smashwords, Amazon, PubIt, etc. We have an online presence already and we thought it would be easy to generate sales, but this wasn’t the case. It was really discouraging to see minimal results. It’s happening to a lot of authors (especially new ones) who elect to ePublish. The good news is: we know why. The bad news is: it takes a lot of work to correct the issue.
As an author, it is very empowering to know that you can control your pricing, profits, promotion and time to market, by ePublishing. It is a much friendlier business model from an author’s perspective. Additionally, anyone can do it. You don’t have to wait for an agent, a publishing deal, and time in the queue. Essentially, you can reduce your time to market by years when you ePublish. Anyone can do it…which is the blessing and the curse.
As the market becomes more and more saturated with eBooks, it makes selling books more difficult. Authors are not just competing with the hundreds of books on a shelf, but rather hundreds of thousands in the eBook space. It is difficult to garner the attention of your target audience.
When you are in the market for a printed book, it is likely that you have seen the cover, heard a review or buzz about it, and that it is easy to find by heading to a bookstore. With eBooks, it is much more complicated than that. You have to be willing to put yourself “out there.” Here are 3 tips that can help:
Publicize your book using the mediums where your audience is.
Do not skimp on the cover of your book
Don’t forget to ask people to buy it and make it easy for them to do that (buttons on blog, website, etc.)
Awesome points – especially the “don’t skimp on the cover” – I don’t know how many times I stopped or passed a book by because of the cover.
Hi,
I also think the cover makes it. Its really important. Thank you for the tips, we are going to publish our first eBook soon.
Olmo
Interesting post, thanks – enjoyed reading it.
Ouch that’s tough.