Become an E-Book Author - Part III
... Selling your knowledge!

by Edward B. Toupin

Promotion is always a difficult task, but it is essential to the success of any product. Once your e-book is properly packaged and ready, you must devise a solid promotion scheme to get it out to the masses.

Promotion

Promotion is the key to getting your e-book noticed. You must be professional and diligent when handling the promotion of your work as one misplaced e-mail or posting could destroy credibility for you and your work.

* Web Site
If you don't already have one, you should consider assembling a Web site to present and sell your e-books. You'll need to obtain your own domain name and quality hosting to gain credibility with your customers and your competitors. You only need to assemble one page per e-book and provide a short blurb outlining what the e-book presents. Also, provide a way for the user to download, or purchase, the e-book as well as a way to contact you.

You've seen the small graphics scattered around the Web that depicts a book or box with the title of the e-book---this is called a "virtual book cover" or a "3D virtual box." Whether you're good with graphics or not, this is a great and simple way to advertise your work. You can view samples at eBook Cover-Art (http://www.ebook-cover-art.com) and Free E-Book Covers (http://freeebookcovers.homestead.com/covers.html).

* Free E-Book Sites
As we discussed earlier, it's always a good idea to have a free version of your e-book to help promote the for-pay version. One of the best reasons is that many e-book sites that allow free promotion will only promote free e-books. This way, you can promote the free version of your e-book on more sites and have it drive potential customers to your Web site. Some of the more popular free e-book promotion sites are as follows:

- E-Books Rock (http://www.ebooksrock.net)
- Free E-Books (http://www.free-ebooks.net)
- E-Book Directory (http://www.e-bookdirectory.com)
- E-Book 2000 (http://www.ebook2000.com)
- Abika (http://www.abika.com/books/submitbook.asp)
- E-Book News (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/EBook_News)
- E-Book Talk (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/EBook_Talk)

* Review Sites
You can get the greatest amount of publicity by submitting your complete e-book to a review site. The reviewers will read your e-book and generate a public review for posting to their site. In this way, others can read the review and visit your site for a download of your e-book. Some of the more popular review sites are:

- EBooks 'n Bytes (http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/reviews)
- Midnight Scribe (http://geocities.com/midnightscribe)
- Reviewers' Int'l Org (http://www.geocities.com/bookreviewers)

* Press Releases
A press release is another great way to bring notice to your new e-book. One of the more prominent e-book press release distribution systems is eBroadcaster (http://www.ebookbroadcast.com/). The site features press releases related to new ebooks, epublisher announcements, and handheld news. Another site is called PressBlast (http://www.pressblast.com/). If you're not up on writing a press release, it's time to get a handle on it because you'll need it!

* Free Content
Many writers abhor free content as they feel they are "writing for free." Actually, if you target your writing to define and present your knowledge as well as bring in clients, the small amount of time you spend putting together the free content is not wasted. Realize that people want information, and if you give them good information, they'll come back for more. Realize also that you already have a great source of free content right under your nose---your e-book. All you have to do is take excerpts from the various chapters and send them to a few posting sites listed below:

- Article Depot (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/The-Article-Depot)
- Article Announce (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/aageneral)
- Free Content (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/Free-Content)
- Publish In Yours (http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/PublishInYours)
- Idea Marketers (http://www.ideamarketers.com)
- Author Connection (http://www.huginc.com)

Distribution

Once you've packaged the product and you feel that it's ready to go out to the world, there are several things you can do to expedite distribution. First, you can always approach a royalty publisher and let them handle the packaging and distribution for you. This is usually a good path to take, but it can be time consuming as they are back-logged with other e-books.

The other path is to distribute it yourself. There are hundreds of sites available on which you can post your packaged e-book. Users will come to the site and download your e-book then either purchase it or visit your site to see what other products you have available.

* For-Pay E-Book Distribution
One method for distributing an e-book you intend to sell is through one or more of the following Web sites. Some of these sites require that you sign an exclusivity contract which prevents you from selling your e-book elsewhere, so pay attention to what you sign. The vendors will usually provide a merchant mechanism so that they can collect a fee for you and, out of that fee, they take their cut. Also, note that many of these distributors will either take your manuscript as a Word file and convert it themselves or they accept only PDF.

- E-Books 'n Bytes (http://www.ebooksnbytes.com)
- 1st Books (http://www.1stbooks.com)
- BookLocker (http://www.booklocker.com)
- MightyWords (http://www.mightywords.com/)
- iBookTime (http://www.ebookshoppe.com)
- EBooks on the Net (http://www.ebooksonthe.net)
- MyPublish (http://www.mypublish.com)
- Amazon (http://www.amazon.com)
- Borders (http://www.borders.com)

* Free E-Book Distribution
The free distribution sites for free e-books provide the mechanism for distributing your free version of your e-book. They take just about any format that can be read on a computer.

- Free EBooks (http://www.free-ebooks.net)
- E-Books 'n Bytes (http://www.ebooksnbytes.com)
- ZDNet (http://www.zdnet.com)
- Download (http://www.download.com)
- Upload (http://www.upload.com)
- Softseek (http://www.softseek.com/submit/index.html)
- EBook News (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ebook_News)
- EBook Talk (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ebook_Talk)
- EBooks Rock (http://ebooksrock.net/)
- EBook 2000 (http://www.ebook2000.com/)

What's next?

When you write and package an e-book, you must have some sort of plan. Don't just write an e-book and "throw" it out there. What is your objective with the e-book? A good plan involves a targeted marketing approach to creating and distributing the e-book.

Make sure that the product attracts people and that the information is useful. Some publishers tend to sell information that is already free on the Web. Make sure that if you use information from the Web that you're not duplicating---always add value to maintain a professional presentation and a respectable reputation.

Once you finish your masterpiece and implement your marketing plan, you'll be well on your way to being known as an "e-book author."