Getting Fans on Facebook to Market Your Ebook

August 6th, 2010

You’ve started a Facebook page for your work, but you don’t have many friends on it. Why is this, and how can you change things? Facebook is a great place to turn to if you’re looking to market your work inexpensively. It is absolutely free to start and it is a great way to get the word out there about your work. But many people start a Facebook page and then get depressed when they realize that no one is going to their page.

Getting fans on Facebook is actually very easy, but it does take a little time. Once you’ve started your Facebook page, go to all of the friends that you have on your personal Facebook page and ask them to add you. Then, once a few have, start promoting your work! Get onto your page and start writing on the wall. Talk to the people, don’t just make statements about your ebook. Do as you would on a regular Facebook page! Talk about a movie that you just watched and how much you liked it, or disliked it. Post pictures up of you working on your novel, or of what you drink or eat when you’re working on your novel. Ask questions, like what people’s favorite books are.

The more you connect with your fans on Facebook, the more fans you’ll get, as the original fans will tell others about you, and so on. Once your site starts to spread, it will go like wildfire, and you’ll be able to have some great marketing opportunities right in front of you without spending a dime!

Speaking of Marketing…

July 28th, 2010

Most writers like to write instead of verbally connecting with people. Writing is a much easier way for them to get out their emotions or their thoughts, but that doesn’t necessarily help when you’re talking about marketing an ebook. You may have written your ebook and know that it’s great, but you need to get people to purchase it. One great way to do that is to learn a bit about how to use your verbal skills to your advantage.

It doesn’t matter whether you live in a small town, or a large city, but there will always be speaking opportunities available for you. One option, for instance, may be for you to speak with college students. Do you have a college in your vicinity? If the college has writing courses, connect with the people in charge and ask about talking with the students. You can discuss your writing methods with them and you can discuss your work.

So what does this accomplish? It helps, first of all, to get your name out there. When you stand in front of a group of people, and if you make a connection with them, you’ll know for sure that every person will talk with at least two people, so if ten people talk with two people, and ten of those people talk with two more people, you’ll quickly have a lot of people learning about your work. Another thing that you can look forward to in speaking with groups like college classes is in getting ideas to write! You never know when you’ll run into someone who has an interesting story to tell and who inspires you!

Responding to Fans

July 21st, 2010

One thing that most new authors don’t think about is what they’re going to do when someone contacts them. If you’ve got a blog and a website up and running, and a Twitter account and a Facebook or MySpace account, you’ll eventually have people trying to connect with you. The more popular you get, the more people you’ll have contacting you. At first this can be extremely thrilling, but as time goes on you can see how much time it can take in order to respond to all of your fans, so what do you do?

You need to make a decision about whether you’re going to automate your responses or are going to continue to send personalized messages. If you opt to send personalized messages, it can be a good idea to set aside a specific amount of time every week, or every day, depending on your schedule, in order to connect with your fans. Answer the letters quickly, but make sure that the messages are personal and that they don’t sound automated. Use the person’s name in the response a few times and speak directly to something that they wrote you.

If you go automated, make sure that you explain, in the message, why you’ve gone automated. Explain that you’re working on your next book, or that you’re overwhelmed with emails, and make sure that you explain that you do read every message and that you respond to as many as possible. This will help the person to realize that you aren’t simply ignoring them, and make sure that you do answer a few message as often as possible, so that you can stay connected with your fans.

Marketing Your Book for Free

July 19th, 2010

When you own your own business, it’s almost an instant reaction to spend money on advertising. That’s why, when you publish your own ebook, it’s an instant reaction to think about spending money to advertise, or market, your ebook to the rest of the world. But the truth is that you don’t need to spend a great amount of money, or, really, any money to market your ebook. There are a lot of things that you can do to market your ebook absolutely free.

The first thing that you should definitely do is to make sure that you are known on the internet. If you don’t have a website, or aren’t on a social marketing site, then you likely aren’t known on the internet. By creating a presence on the internet, you’re able to get the word out about your new work. Once you’re online, take the time to look for other authors. You will likely be able to find blogs of other authors who write work that is similar to yours. Befriend them! Start by writing a message on their blog (and it’s a plus if you actually take the time to read their work) and letting them know that you’re out there.

Message boards are a great way to get the word out about you and your work. Find some message boards and join them. Answer questions that new people have, and don’t forget to add the address to your website in your signature on the blog. Make sure that you pop in on the site regularly, so it doesn’t look like you’re just there to advertise. It’s also a great idea to join writers groups online, which are similar to message boards, and to get in touch with writers this way! It’s entirely possible to market your book online without ever spending a dime, so make sure that you take advantage of the internet!

Marketing When You’re An Introvert

July 9th, 2010

There are a lot of writers who are introverted people. They don’t like to talk about themselves, and they have a difficult time marketing their ebooks. This makes sense, as many writers are so good at writing because they don’t like to be vocal about everything. This can make it tricky, however, for marketing purposes. There are a number of ways around this problem that can help you to market your work while, at the same time, staying comfortable.

Starting a website or blog is key. When you start a blog, you’re able to get your thoughts out through writing instead of through speech. One way to make the blog easier is to write in third person. Don’t write “I”, write “she”. It may be a bit strange to get used to doing considering that you’re talking about yourself, but it can be a great way for you to practice your tenses as well as a much more comfortable way for you to get your marketing done and to become more comfortable with the marketing process and talking about yourself.

Another tip is to start by connecting first with people that you know. By connecting with your friends first, you’ll be able to practice your marketing so that you understand what is expected of you and so that you learn how things sound, and you’ll also be able to get more comfortable with marketing. And why not practice talking in the mirror? Speaking to groups in your area can be a great marketing technique, but it’s not so fun if you’re uncomfortable. Instead, start by writing things down and practicing saying them in the mirror. This will help you to get more comfortable with everything!

Twitter for Marketing Your Ebook

July 7th, 2010

When Twitter first started, most people began using it as a way to talk about trivial things. They’d post “Tweets” about how they were making dinner, or about what they wanted for their birthday. But now people realize that Twitter can be used for much more than for just talking about trivial daily stuff. If you use Twitter right, it can be a perfect way to network market and to boost sales of your ebook.

To start, the first thing that you need to do is to open up a Twitter account! Twitter is absolutely free and is very easy to sign up for. When signing up for your account, it’s important that you use some sort of name that makes sense. Don’t use a Twitter name like “Lake Guy”, unless you’re someone who writes only about lakes. Most authors tend to use their real name on Twitter, as it makes it easier for your name to pop up on search engines and it is much more professional looking.

Once you’ve signed up on Twitter, you then need to start posting and to find other people to network with. The first part is easy – post about anything related to your work. Post about your writing process, post little parts of your book through the Twitter (little quotes), post about new works that you’ve got going on. Finding people to read your Tweets can be the frustrating part. When you start looking for people to read your posts, start by finding your friends online. Connect with them and you’ll be able to have a wealth of people available to read your Tweets. The more interesting your Tweets are, the more readers you’ll get, and the more you’ll be able to sell your book!

Marketing Ebooks Thanks to Other Writers

July 5th, 2010

When you think marketing, the first thing that you may think of is trying to advertise your book. And it’s true that advertising is a great way to get your book out there, but there are many other ways that you can market your ebook that don’t involve paying a dime for advertising. One thing that many new authors don’t realize is how important it is to get in touch with other authors. It’s easy, when you first start writing, to think of other authors as your competition. You may even start comparing yourself and your work to theirs, or trying to outdo them.

In reality, other authors can actually be a huge help to you. Some of the best contemporary authors have made friendships with each other. They are there to support each other and to lend a helping hand, by being there to bounce ideas off of, and to help you to not only possibly edit your work, but also to help you to market your book. If you were to create a group of writers, say five to ten, and you were to each help each other to market their books, you could potentially have a large group of new readers to entertain.

One thing that is interesting is that most authors don’t finish writing at the same time. If you have a group of five authors, you likely will find that you each get done within a few months of each other. This means that you can all take turns supporting each other in marketing your books. Make friends with authors, as they can help you to not only promote your book, but to get your book absolutely perfect before you put it out there for others.

Getting a Marketing Plan

June 30th, 2010

Most established writers have a strategy for writing. They may create a character web or some other type of outline that helps them to understand their work and to get it done well. What you don’t know is that most marketing experts also have a strategy. They never try to market a book until they know what they want to do and are ready to do it. This strategy helps to keep them organized and it helps to make sure that they do everything that they need to do in order to sell the book.

Most ebook writers don’t have a marketing guru behind them, so they need to learn how to market their ebook themselves. This means that you should definitely make yourself a marketing strategy. Your marketing strategy should be something that you can realistically follow, as well as something that hits all of the different levels of marketing that you need to do in order to have the best hope of selling many copies of your work. So how should you start your marketing strategy? First you should make sure that you know all of the different ways that you can market a book. You can, for instance, market your ebook through your website, through social networks (like Facebook and Twitter) and even though your regular, printed contacts.

Once you’ve got all of your marketing ideas written down, start organizing them in a way that makes sense to you. Most start by doing what is the most easy for them to do, but some say that doing the most difficult things first make sense, as after you figure out how to do the strategy, you can then spend your time doing the easier things. A marketing strategy is a great way to help you to sell your ebook – make sure that you know what plans you have and how you’re going to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself.

Connecting Locally

June 25th, 2010

One of the biggest mistakes that many new authors make is in assuming that they should only advertise online. They write an ebook and then they try to sell it online. Getting established online is extremely important, and that’s something that we’ll go into in depth. But you should never forget about the local people. They are the ones who will be proud of your accomplishment and who will also help you to become the person that you want to be.

Once you’ve written your ebook, and you’ve started promoting it globally, start promoting it locally as well. There are many ways that you can promote your ebook locally, and even plenty of ways that you can do it without much, or any, money. One thing that you can do is to put the information about your book up on your local community bulletin boards. These bulletin boards are the ideal place to put up your information and will help people to see exactly what you’re doing. Make sure that you include a link to your website so that they can see even more about what you’re all about.

You can also connect with the local media. Talk with the newspaper reporters in your area and let them know about what you’re doing. If you live in a small area, you may be one of the first people to write and sell an ebook, which makes you newsworthy. You could also connect with your local radio stations, who may be willing to work with you to do a giveaway. If you’re interested in getting your ebook sold, and in getting your name out there, make sure that you think not only globally, but locally as well.

Using a Press Release for Marketing Your Ebook

June 14th, 2010

Today we’re going to talk about press releases. You’ve probably seen a press release before. A press release is a way to announce a new type of product or service to the world. It’s a way to get information out in one quick swipe, while making sure that the information is correct as well. Many new authors, especially those who are self-publishing online, don’t realize that they can use a press release in order to get the word out about their new work. But it’s important to correctly write a press release and to submit it to the right sites. So how do you correctly write a press release?

First of all, you need to have something to announce, and announcing something like a new novel is the perfect type of thing to announce. Next you need to have a format. If you do a search online for a press release you’ll see what the general format looks like. You can copy a good press release to your Word blank document and can use that as a template so that you can make sure that you get the style correct. Plug in the basic information, such as the date and the location, and then make sure that you’ve got a great title and subtitle in mind. Something that catches the eye while, at the same time, giving information.

There are many different websites online that you can submit your press release to when you’re done. Simply search for websites that accept press releases and you’ll find a number of them! Then submit your press release and watch as it calls attention to your new work. Make sure that you put the website address on the bottom of the press release (and once in the release as well) so that people know how to get to your work!