Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Developing Your eBook Platform

“Platform” is the current publishing buzzword for a plan that you have developed to promote your eBook once you have published it. Your platform consolidates a number of tools to spread the word about your new or latest eBook. The responsibility for promoting your book is solely your own. You are not only the author; you are your own publisher, too;and, as such, you are totally in charge of getting the word out to anyone you want to buy and read your book.

I work with three well-known eBook publishers-distributors: amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and smashwords.com. Amazon is the major online bookseller, with an inventory of more than 800,000 books; Barnes and Noble is a leading national  bricks and mortar and online eBook retailer; and Smashwords is an international eBook publisher, distributor and online retailer, which specializes only in eBooks and now respresents 40,000 of them. All three of these publishers offer a number of services to help me market my eBooks to my chosen market segments.    

Since mine is an eBook, published electronically for a potential readership who will acquire it, store it and read it in an electronic format, it stands to reason that I can reach this potential readership by electronic means. Here are some of the things I’ve used to publicize my first eBook:

Book Review Copies

Amazon and Barnes and Noble both enable me to lend my book for a period of two weeks to a target list of potential book reviewers associated with Catholic newspapers, magazines and blogs, who might help me to spread the word about my book. Smashwords goes one better: through their unique couponing program, they allow me to send online coupons to this same target market, who might publish an unbiased review of my book for their specific readerships.

Press Releases

In order to implement my plan for book reviewer recruitment, I develop a press release tailored, whenever possible, to each specific geographic segment. For example, in writing to the editors of Catholic newspapers or magazines in dioceses or archdioceses in which I’ve lived over the years, I mention in the release the name of the parish in which I was active, or the elementary school which I or our children attended.

Author and Book Pages

Each of my chosen publishers offers me free author and book pages, which enable me to provide relevant information about my eBook(s) and my biosketch, a link to my pertinent blogs and an opportunity to sample and (hopefully) buy my book.

My Pertinent Blogs

I use two of my weblogs, Catholic Writer’s Notebook, and, of course, the blog you’re now reading, to publicize any new developments regarding my eBooks. If you’re a writer and/or an author, I strongly encourage you to take up blogging. It’s a great way to express yourself on a regular basis, and it’s not as difficult as you might think. In fact, Google Bogger makes it very easy with step-by-step tutorials and ready made, neat and clean templates that take all the techy part out of it.

Social Networks

This is an arena that I’m beginning to develop for my marketing strategy. Right now, I’m limiting myself to Facebook and LinkedIn. With Facebook, I’m getting much better results, and I’m developing more of a fan base of family and friends, and of friends of friends. Facebook enables me to publish news about my publishing exploits, replete with images and/or direct hyperlinks, which let my readers go to my author pages, book pages or to specific blog posts to see what they’re all about.  

E-Mail Promotion

In preparation for publicizing my eBooks, I developed an extensive list of e-mail contacts, categorized into a number of groups: family, friends, fellow parishioners, Catholic newspaper editors, Catholic magazine editors, Catholic bloggers, Catholic book reviewers, etc. When I first published Jesus’ Six Keys to a More Perfect You, these sub-lists enabled me to tailor my messages appropriately to each specific group.

Publish More Than One Book  

Mark Coker, founder and CEO of Smashwords emphasizes in his Smashwords Book Marketing Guide that a very powerful tool to multiplying your eBook sales is to publish more than one book, and to publish a list of each of your previous book titles on the title page of each succeeding book that you publish. I’m about to publish my second eBook, and I am listing the title of my first eBook prominently on both the front cover art and on the book’s title page.

Use a Professional Front Cover Designer

It is axiomatic that, especially in the eBook publishing business, your front cover image sells your book. I am extremely fortunate to have a daughter who is a very talented and experienced magazine graphic designer, trained in her craft at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. When I asked if she might be able to design a digital front cover for my first book, she did not disappoint. It was a thing of beauty! And now that I’m getting ready to launch eBook #2, she did it again. Even if you’re not so fortunate, I urge you to do whatever it takes to get a professional digital front cover image for your book. If you want to publish on iPad and some other major eReader formats, it is required. Shop around your locale; compare samples of their work and what they charge. Then make the best informed decision that you can.

In future posts on this subject, I will offer more more specific posts on each of these and other promotional strategies.

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