7 Effective Ways to Promote Your New eBook

When you are ready to launch your new eBook, the first thing is to expose your eBook and create widespread awareness of the right audiences. Take the following steps:

1.      KDP Select program: Sell your eBook exclusively to Amazon to take advantage of the option to offer your book free to readers for up to 5 days every 90 days to promote your new book.

2.      Author Marketing Club: Be a member and fill in the form to provide details to announce your free Kindle promotion before Friday.  Use their free Kindle book submission tool and submit to the top free Sites.  You can also add your book cover to their gallery.

3.      Amazon Author Central: Go to your dashboard look for the “Actions” button at the bottom left, choose “manage promotions” and select 5 days with the starting date to coincide with the announcement date of your free book at Author Marketing club on Friday.

4.      Your blog: Post an article to tie with the launch of your promotion like what I have done in the article: My 3rd eBook and Amazon KDP Select.

5.      Press release: Send a press release and upload on the first day of your free eBook promotion like I did at Free Press Release: A Dozen Effective Ways to Work Smart.

6.      Social networking sites: Link your article and your press release to major social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and MySpace on the launch date

7.      Spread the words: Announce to the world that during the 5 days your eBook is free to download.

Doing all these at the same time is to create the greatest impact of your new eBook on the Net.  

My eBook promotion:

During the 5-day free eBook promotion from September 21, 2012, to September 25, 2012, my eBook, All about Working Smart is listed in the top 100 chart of Amazon under the Motivational category. In fact, at one stage my eBook is at No. 6 spot in the USA Chart.

According to the image here, my eBook is No. 13 in the top 100 chart. 

In UK Amazon, my eBook is also among the top 100 as listed in the Self-Help section.

A total of 244 units were downloaded during the 5-day promotion.
  

What’s next?

When you have created awareness on the Net during the 5 days, you continue to promote your book online and offline. Hopeful more Kindle owners will borrow your book and you will be able to enjoy a bigger share of the   Kindle Owners' Lending Library Fund every month. The Kindle Owners' Lending Library is a collection of books that Amazon Prime members who own a Kindle can borrow once a month, with no due dates. In addition, you will earn royalties for the sales of your eBook.

My 3rd eBook and Amazon KDP Select

I have just published my 3^rd eBook entitled All About Working Smart. This time I am only using Amazon to market my book exclusively because I have chosen their KDP Select program. According to Amazon when you choose KDP Select for a book, you're committing to make the digital format of that book available exclusively through KDP. During the period of exclusivity, you cannot distribute your book digitally anywhere else, including on your website, blogs, etc.

By joining KDP Select, my book will be available for lending in the Kindle Owners' Lending Library for a period of 90 days and I will be entitled to share the Kindle Owners' Lending Library fund. According to Amazon, Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Fund is calculated based on a share of the total number of qualified borrows of all participating KDP titles. For example, if the monthly fund amount is $500,000, the total qualified borrows of all participating KDP titles is 300,000, and if your book was borrowed 1,500 times, you will earn 0.5% (1,500/300,000 = 0.5%), or $2,500 for that month.  I will also have the option to offer my book free to readers for up to 5 days every 90 days to promote my new book.

All About Working Smart is a collection of useful articles to inspire you to work smarter and be more productive. You can still purchase the book from http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009CVCYY8 Amazon at $2.99 even though I have enrolled in their KDP Select program.      

In conjunction with the lunch of my new eBook, you can get this eBook for free as from today for 5 days from Amazon (September 21, 2012, to September 25, 2012).  

Related posts:

Publish your First eBook at Smashwords and Be Noticed Globally

My Second eBook

My Second eBook

I have just published my second eBook, all About Happiness. This eBook talks about getting daily happiness, happiness at home and at work. There is a chapter about inspiring quotes on happiness and a checklist for happiness. All in all, there are 10 chapters in this book.

My first book, 7 Effective Ways to Live a Happy and Successful Life, published last month has managed to sell only 6 books at Smashwords.  As an indie author, I am not at all discouraged.  I am determined and I will continue to write just the way I manage my blog with patience. In fact, it is the first in a series of “All About” eBooks. Future eBooks will cover working smart, productivity, personal finance and relationships.

I encountered a problem publishing my first eBook at Smashwords. My word file was not properly formatted to accept into their Premium Catalog. It means my eBook will not be distributed through major retailers such as Apple, Barnes and Noble, Sony and Kobo. I have to hire a formatter at a cost of $25 to get my eBook into the Premium Catalog.

I have written two eBooks but I don’t even have a digital eBook reader. I will get one soon. I think Google Nexus 7 is a good buy.

My eBooks are available at Amazon and Smashwords.   

Get the book. Each eBook is only $2.99.

7 Reasons to Write eBooks Now

I have recently published my first eBook. I would urge you to do the same for many beneficial reasons:

1.      Gain valuable experience of publishing an eBook: I always advocate making changes and trying new things in your life. It is a great way to learn and be knowledgeable. It opens up new horizon and widens your perspective. Now I have stretched my comfort zone further.  

2.      Easy and flexible to sell your eBook globally and at different prices: I sell my first eBook on Amazon and Smashwords. By doing so I will be able to gauge which outlet can sell better. By the way, I sold one book on Smashwords on the first day and nothing yet from Amazon. I will also be able to juggle with the price to up or down it. You can’t do it with a physical book. You can even make changes to your book easily after it is published.

3.      The habit continues: Now that I have got my first book out I want to write more eBooks as envisaged and planned. My first book is just an introductory volume about living with life and I will write an eBook for each sub-topic of my first book. I will be writing a series. Write your first eBook and you will be motivated to write more enthusiastically.   

4.      Establish your personal brand: I am a blogger and I am the   writer for this blog. After publishing one eBook I am now also a publisher and an indie author. It is an effective way to establish and strengthen your brand and hone your expertise in your chosen field of endeavor.

5.      A new source of passive income: Why be an affiliate and sell other people products? It is more satisfying to sell your own information products. There is no inventory and your market is worldwide. It wouldn’t go out of stock. I don’t expect my first book to sell because I am unknown in the publishing world. As I continue to publish more eBooks I will be luckier.

6.      Huge potential: The trend is fast catching on. Recently Google and Asus have teamed up to build the Nexus 7 tablet to rival Amazon’s Kindle Fire. It means eReaders are important devices and eBooks will get more popular. Very soon book stores will go out of business. Just read the headline of this article, It's the end of books as you knew them: E-books out-sell hardbound for the 1st time.

7.      Very little money is involved: It only cost me $5 for the cover to publish my first eBook.  The cover is an important element for an eBook because your book cover creates the first impression.

Write your first eBook now and share your experience here.

Publish your First eBook at Smashwords and Be Noticed Globally

When you have published your first eBook at Amazon, it is wise to circulate your eBook and reach a global audience. So your next move is to upload your eBook and publish on Smashwords.

·         The benefits: Your eBook is distributed to online retailers such as Apple (distribution to iBookstores in 32 countries), Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, WH Smith in the UK and FNAC (both powered by Kobo), the Diesel eBook Store,  eBooks Eros (operated by Diesel), Baker & Taylor (Blio and the Axis360 library service) and Page Foundry (operates retail sites Inktera.com and Versent.com; operates Android ebook store apps for Cricket Wireless and Asus). Your book is also given an International Standard Book Number for free. This is my ISBN: 9781476494623 for my eBook, 7 Effective Ways to Live a Happy and Successful Life. You can Google it and check out my first eBook.

·         The process: Before you do anything, read Smashwords Style Guide. This free guide offers simple step-by-step instructions to create, format and publish an ebook. As usual, you use Word to create your eBook. However, there is a difference in saving the file before you upload to Samshwords. For Amazon Kindle  you save the file as “Web page, filtered” and for Smashwords, you save as “Word 97-2003 document”

·         Important: Read The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success. It is free. According to Mark Coker, the author, these secrets will help you become a more professional, more successful writer and publisher.

Get your eBook published at Amazon and Smashwords for worldwide coverage.  

How to Get an eBook Cover for $5

I have just published my first eBook. As I am not good in software, I have to outsource a book cover.  I have found a place where I can get a cover done quickly and cheaply at fiverr.com: 

        1. `Got to fiverr.com,  on the top right of the  page you will see this:

2.       Type “design book cover” and you will get a list of people who are willing to design a book cover for you at $5.

3.       Choose one with many positive reviews.

4.       When you have chosen the one you like, click “order now” and you will be directed to a new page for you to make payment at PayPal.

5.      When payment is made you can then provide the title of your book and the name of the author. You can request for an image or supply your own. Ask for a 2D cover so that you will see the front of the cover in full like the one shown here.   

6.       It can be done in 24 hours and upon your request, the cover can be modified to suit your needs.

7.     This site can do more than just designing book covers. Browse and ask for it.   How about this one?   

What do you think of the cover of my first eBook?

Launch Your First Personal Project Successfully

A personal project consists of a series of tasks. Writing an eBook is a good example. It can’t be done in a few hours or a day. It takes many days or months. Planning, organizing and executing are the ways to complete a personal project orderly, smoothly and timely.

Here are the steps to take:

1.       The big picture: What do you wish to accomplish? You need to know the steps to be taken like writing an eBook.  If you are not sure, you can always surf the Net and look for relevant information and gain the knowledge to do it right the first time.

2.       The small steps: The next thing is to break it down into actionable tasks in its proper sequence. You also need to give a deadline for each task so that you can work with a sense of urgency. I am giving here, as an example, how I publish my first eBook.  For your information, I am not actually writing the eBook because the material is extracted from my blog posts and I am working on the project part-time.

·         July 1 Read Building Your Book for Kindle

·         July 2  front matter: title page and subtitle, copyright page, preface, acknowledgement, table of contents

·         July 3  chapter 1

·         July 4  chapter 2

·         July 5  chapter 3

·         July 6  chapter 4

·         July 7   chapter 5

·         July 8   chapter 6

·         July 9   chapter 7

·         July 10   chapter 8

·         July 11   back matter: about the author

·         July 12-14  revision

·         July 15-18  editing  and proofreading

·         July 19-20 get a book cover from fiverr.com in 24-hour at $5/= only.

·         July 21 upload to Amazon, the book is available online in Amazon Kindle Bookstore, do  promotion:  press release, a blog post, notify social networking sites and  subscribers, do a presentation at SlideShare

3.    The positive mindset: Do not get distracted, be focused and be disciplined to work your plan and get the daily tasks done accordingly. You will be motivated by the progress you have made in each passing day.

4.       Daily review: Look at your daily tasks. Are you able to follow the schedule? Do you need to revise your steps and make changes because of new developments? Be flexible and get the project launched successfully.

5.       Launched: My first eBook is successfully published on July 21, 2012. If you have an eReader such as a Kindle Fire you can download 7 Effective Ways to Live a Happy and Successfully Life. It is only $2.99.      

Plan and work your first personal project now.

Quick and Easy Way to Publish an eBook

More and more people are buying eReaders such as Kindle and Nook. 

Those With E-book Readers Read 40% More Than Physical Book Readers and E-books are the fastest-growing areas of book sales, especially for youngsters,

There is a great demand for eBooks, do you know that your blog posts are a ready-made eBook? Have you written, say, over a thousand articles? Here are the ways to turn your blog posts into one or more eBooks:

1.      Select a title for your first eBook:  As I write about living with life, my first eBook is an overview of several subjects such as health, work, personal finance, family, relationships, self-development and happiness.   When the first eBook is done, I can expand and write more in-depth eBooks covering each topic in my first eBook.  You should do the same so that you can publish several eBooks without running out of ideas.      

2.      Choose relevant articles from your blog: My blog platform is Blogger. It is able to tell me the number of views for each article. So, it is easy for me to choose relevant and popular posts for my eBook. However, it is necessary to combine and revise several articles to suit one particular chapter.     

3.      Use Word to write your eBook: You can write your eBook using Word. It allows you to convert your files into eBook formats such as ePub, an open industry standard and Mobipocket, the format used by Amazon.

4.      Selling: Consider selling your first eBook to Amazon and Apple iBookstore because Amazon sells the most digital books and Apple sells the most iPads. You also need to consider the selling price of your book. For Kindle, you can choose either a royalty of 35% starting at $0.99 per book or 70% royalty starting at $2.99 per book.

5.      Promotion: Promote your first eBook on your blog and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Tell your friends and do a press release. 

As I have just started working on my first eBook. I will provide more details as I go along.