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Home::Online Promotion
Why Budding Authors Should Go Digital
Author : Gerald W Shaw
You've put hours and hours of research, writing, revisions,
editing, proofreading - and really, your heart and soul - into
writing the best how-to book you can imagine. The text is
interesting and informative, the diagrams and schematics
precise, and overall, you have a piece of work in which you can
take pride. You're well on your way to becoming an author of
note at your local book store, except for one small detail: no
one wants to publish your masterpiece. Thanks to the burgeoning
industry of internet publishing, however, you have another
option: ebook publishing.
An ebook is to the literary world what email is to the postal
system. Ebooks are books that have been formatted for electronic
presentation, and nearly anyone can publish an ebook with
minimal effort and more importantly, minimal resources. Ebooks
do not rely on publishing houses to come to fruition. Most
ebooks are designed and formatted either by the author, or if
you're really serious, by a qualified designer so that the pages
conform to printing and aesthetic standards. The pages are then
either saved as PDF, html or common word processing files. PDF
files are generally the best way to present your ebook material,
but depending on how you intend to promote your ebook
publication, the other formats may be more appropriate.
Once your ebook is in the works, it is time to launch an ebook
promotion and marketing plan. Traditional marketing strategies
such as advertising in the newspaper may be a good idea if your
ebook addresses a topic of wide appeal, but the electronic
nature of ebooks begs for a similar style of promotion.
The first step in marketing and promoting an ebook should be to
ensure you have great content. A lot of would-be authors mistake
the simplicity of publishing an ebook as an invitation to
present low-quality work. Beware: readers will abandon shoddy
writing whether it is on paper or on screen so make sure you
have well-written, well-formatted prose that has been checked
and rechecked for errors.
The next step to effective internet marketing of an ebook is to
create a dynamite website that will grab the attention of
potential ebook buyers and move them to act. Again, if you're
not super web friendly, invest in the services of a professional
web designer to help you achieve a polished website that allows
buyers to learn about your ebook, about you and, of course, to
order your ebook. From a consumer perspective, one of the
benefits of buying an ebook is that you can do so from the
comfort of your own home. Keeping that in mind, make sure your
website has instant payment and downloading features. It is also
important to have a website that will show up in search engine
queries. Talk to your web master about techniques such as
publishing fresh content, meta information, keywords, links and
RSS feeds to maintain a high search engine ranking.
Email is another super medium to spread the word about your new
ebook. Create mailing lists (or buy them online), so that you
can send mass messages heralding the arrival of your latest
work. Some ebook authors find it helpful to have an email
notification opt-in feature on their websites so that interested
readers can receive automatic notification of news concerning
your ebook or future work.
So how does one profit from writing an ebook? Just as with
traditional books, ebook material is copyrighted and therefore
belongs to the author. The ebook author can sell individual
copies of his or her ebook; can sell resell rights or reprint
rights to a prospective buyer; or even set up a club or
subscription-type system in which readers pay an annual or
monthly fee for access to material that is protected from the
public internet community.
Ebooks are a fantastic way to tap into the publishing world.
While not yet considered mainstream, ebooks are quickly becoming
more popular. In fact, for some often-changing non-fiction
subjects, ebooks are preferable to print books that rapidly fall
out of date. With an ebook, information can be quickly and
easily updated with the latest information.
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