Checklist to Market an eBook

You’ve published your eBook, now Marketing your eBook is the next step! Find out why you should take these steps, how to do it, and tools for getting it done efficiently right here! Marketing an eBook takes some time, no matter how efficient you attempt to be. There is a learning curve, and my marketing efforts are still a work in progress. Some of these ideas I’ve put in place, and some I plan to. I hope they’ll help you get started with your marketing efforts!

• Put Calls To Action in your book (and elsewhere)
• Get Reviews for your book…see amarketingexpert.com
• Spiff up your About page.
• Optimize yourself on Google+…see boostblogtraffic.com
• Create an author page on Amazon. Here is mine.
• Make an author trailer for your author page. Here’s my author trailer.
• Make a book trailer. Here’s 11 steps to make your own from the Creative Penn.
• Add a post announcing your publication to your website and Facebook page.
• Create a sidebar box with a link to your eBook on your webpage.
• Set up a Pinterest page…see 34 Strategic Ways You Can Use Pinterest to Market Your Book and Your Author Brand at Your Writer Platform. Here’s my Pinterest Profile, and my board about Book Marketing.
• Share bits of information and quotes from your book in posts to spark interest. There’s several free tools to create quotes.
• Use your Facebook Cover Photo in unique ways. www.timelinecoverbanner.com is a helpful tool to create them.
• Survey your Readers. Michael Hyatt describes the results of his survey. I plan to do this, and will probably use surveymonkey.com.
• Connect with online influencers.
• Pitch yourself as a guest blogger…see becomeablogger.com
• Set up a way to collect emails from your fans.

I resisted this for a couple of reasons: 1. I don’t like to get a lot of stuff in my email, and 2. I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to communicating on a regular basis. However, everything I read about marketing emphasizes the importance of this, and The Author With The Biggest Mailing List Wins convinced me. There are various options for doing this, ultimately I chose MailChimp. Note: While MailChimp is free up to a certain number, it is not free to set up autoresponders.

• Set up a way to manage the emails you collect, so you can add them to MailChimp and keep track of them: Vertex 42 offers a free Contact List Template.
• Next find a way to add the email sign-up form to your website. I ended up adding an image widget to my blog with a link to the sign-up form.
• Offer something they will want to sign up. People want something of value to them. Problogger describes how to create something that solves a problem for your readers. Some bloggers offer a report, guide or whitepaper of interest. Michael Hyatt offers a free Ebook. Personally, it takes a lot for me to sign up for more email in my inbox. I was really tempted by the Procrastinator’s Anonymous Newsletter offer by alphaefficiency.com!
• Consider a free newsletter. I experimented with curating a weekly review with highlights in Flipboard, however, there are templates in MailChimp that work fine for newsletters.
• Decide how often you will send email: Not too much, not too little. I’m still not sure what the optimal frequency is.
• Create a Welcome email.
• Continue to improve your marketing in creative ways.

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Get your free printable (pdf)  eBook Marketing Checklist!

About dailyplanit

I seek to create order from the chaos of complex information. Join me at the Daily PlanIt to gain insights, inspiration, and information to increase skills for a better life. I unlock the power of teaching reading with phonics in the pursuit of literacy at www.phonicspow.com. In my spare time I explore books and movies, often choosing titles available on both screen and page.