Whether you're selling ebooks to make immediate profit, to build your list of buyers or to position yourself as an expert in your field, here are 15 tips to get more books in the hands of buyers.
1. Know your target market, find out where they hang out and then be there. Whether it's forums, blogs, websites, etc., find out their favorite haunts and then figure out ways to get your book seen and talked about without spamming. Frankly, half the battle of selling more ebooks is knowing where your best customers are. Far too many marketers and authors are promoting their goods anywhere and everywhere, rather than concentrating their efforts where they will gain the highest return for their efforts.
2. Use video. A 2-3 minute video about your book can be the perfect lure to use in social media to get people interested and heading over to your sales page.
3. Give away the first 1-3 chapters of your ebook. People want to know if they're getting quality and the fastest way to prove they are is to give them the first chapters for free. Include a detailed, benefit-laden and curiosity provoking table of contents, as well as a cliff hanger at the end of the last chapter you give away. Be sure to place the order page link at the end of the free chapters as well, along with instructions to click the link to immediately get the rest of the book.
4. If you don't want to give away the first few chapters, consider creating a special report that includes some (not all!) of the best information from the book. In the report you'll mainly tell them what they should be doing, but not 'how' to do it. This way they need to buy your book to get the results they seek.
5. If you haven't launched your book yet, build up anticipation for it. Build a wait list, use email and video to disseminate information, and basically get people excited to get the book when it arrives.
6. Offer a discount for a specific time period when the book is first launched to quickly ramp up sales and get testimonials.
7. Get testimonials before you launch. Give your book to prominent people in your niche and to people in your own network and ask them to review it for you.
8. Make it super easy to order. Regardless of how you distribute your ebook, make the sales process as seamless and easy as possible. The more hurdles they have to jump through to get your book, the more likely they are to click away before completing the sales process. If you are selling the book from a sales page, make the sales page match the ebook cover with the same colors and same type of graphics for a seamless experience.
9. Use keywords in your book title and your website URL. This can make it easier for prospects to find your book.
10. Run contests via social media to give away free copies of your book.
11. Do webinar joint ventures. Find list owners, bloggers and affiliates in your niche who will promote a webinar to their readers. You provide free training on the webinar and then sell your book at the end, splitting the profits with the list owner.
12. Offer a free coaching course in conjunction with your book. This course is delivered automatically via autoresponder, and helps the purchaser to get the very most out of your book. This can get some fence-sitters to act, since they can see how this will make the book more useful and increase the odds they'll get real value from it, instead of letting it gather cyber dust like so many other books they've purchased.
13. Hold an affiliate contest. Some affiliates will go all out just to get the bragging rights of having won the contest.
14. Find bloggers in similar but non-competing topics whose readers would benefit from your book. Send them a free copy and offer a special deal just for their readers.
15. Hold a challenge. Ask for volunteers to go through your book, implement the information with your help, and report the results. This can gain a lot of social media attention, depending on your topic.