Those experienced with marketing an ebook, say that marketing should start before the book is published. The author should have a market of readers waiting to read the book, anticipating the publication of the ebook, which I think is a great idea, but I did not do it. If I had done it, the title of my book would not have been correct, as I changed the title several times in the draft copies of my book until I found the title which truly seemed to fit. I could easily fit two short words on the cover of my book, Walk Forward, comprising two short words not only fit on the cover, but is a theme of the book and repeated in the contents more than any other phrase. It was the perfect title!
I am trying to market my ebook, Walk Forward, after publication on Amazon Kindle Select.
I emailed family and friends and asked them to share the link. Putting the link in the email makes it easy for them to find the book. I purchased 10 ISBNs from Bowker as discussed in an earlier post, but in email to family and friends it is easiest for them if one includes the Amazon link, which includes the ASIN, a unique code assigned by Amazon to the ebook. The ASIN of Walk Forward is B009H6Y7AC.
Many ebook sites ask for the ISBN or ASIN of the ebook.
The ASIN, the Amazon Standard Identification Number, is a unique identification number assigned by Amazon.com and its partners for product identification within Amazon.com
I emailed my LinkedIn ebook publishing groups. These groups were tremendously helpful as they checked my book's page on Amazon. Members emailed me to select tags for the book on its page in the Amazon database. Amazon allows 15 tags per item and my LinkedIn group emailed that I should take full advantage of the feature and assign as many tags as permitted.
A few family and friends said they would like to write a review and I hope they do! I only have two reviews of the book to date.
Someone suggested that I "gift" the book to family and friends, which I did, but only one or two of the persons I gifted actually downloaded the book.
The reason family and friends are not receipting the gifted book is because they thought they had to own a Kindle or other reading device. Now that I emailed them that they could read the book in the Amazon Cloud, download an appropriate apps, or "Kindle for the PC," they are happy campers!
I sent the link to hundreds of organizations, which I determined might have an interest, tweeted about my new published book, created a Facebook page for the book, a website for the book which includes photographs related to the story in my book, and included relevant hash tags (#), the list of which I will include in a later posting.
Since I placed Walk Forward in the Amazon Kindle Select Program, I have 5 promotion days each 90 day period during which my book is free. My first free day is this Thursday, October 11, 2012, and I am actively submitting my book to the many sites that advertise free ebooks.
What is really great about publishing a book on Amazon is that one see the sales of the book in their "Report Module," my favorite module! An author can easily review the current and retrospective sales of their book.
I identified some secrets to the selecting sites to which to post the free book promotion days, if they prove to work, I will post!
Showing posts with label ebook publication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ebook publication. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
Marketing Your Ebook: Part 1
Many say that writing the book is the easy part, but marketing is the real challenge.
My book, Walk Forward, was published on Amazon Kindle Select on September 25, 2012. I told family and friends about the book, which because of some early purchases, had a high rating in its very narrow subject area of non fiction, historical, holocaust, young adult, and adult categories.
The reason the numbers were high on first publication was because family and friends purchased several copies, and because the book is in a very narrow subject area.
In hindsight, I discovered the secret of a preliminary high rating, a few sales in a narrow subject area, where relatively few publish. My subject areas not being in the mass market, nor would the masses have interest in my topic.
My book is about the search for my lost sister. A newly found relative read the book and emailed me that I left my great-uncle out of the book. I quickly added him and sent the book to Amazon to update.
Updating is easy, but for one problem. The author can not purchase more than one copy of a book, even if it is an update. I understand that this is true for everyone, one can not buy the original copy of a book and the update, a week or two later! Amazon will send the author the updated version, update the version of the book in the Amazon Cloud, but this might take a few days. Thus, it takes some time to see if the live links to websites included in a book, actually work.
Amazon is aware of the problem with readers wanting to purchase updates of books and I hope this issue is resolved quickly as in the case of my ongoing search for my sister, as more information is found, I hope to include it in updates to the book.
Since I had uploaded a MOBI file, the "preview" module does not include the option of seeing the HTML of the uploaded book. When I click on a live link in the book in "preview" mode, it links to the cover of my book, rather than going out to the link.
To revise a MOBI file, one has to recreate the MOBI file and upload the book once again.
Per updates, I emailed Amazon to find out if I could load a book in MOBI and update in HTML, for example, and they replied "Yes," but I decided to continue with MOBI, which was Amazon Kindle's native file, once-upon-a-time.
The "Look Inside" was immediately updated and Amazon sent me an email saying that my book, meaning my revision, was published. New customers purchasing the book would receive the revised book.
Come back to read "Marketing Your Ebook: Part 2," and follow my journey into the secrets and adventures in ebook publishing as it happens!
My book, Walk Forward, was published on Amazon Kindle Select on September 25, 2012. I told family and friends about the book, which because of some early purchases, had a high rating in its very narrow subject area of non fiction, historical, holocaust, young adult, and adult categories.
The reason the numbers were high on first publication was because family and friends purchased several copies, and because the book is in a very narrow subject area.
In hindsight, I discovered the secret of a preliminary high rating, a few sales in a narrow subject area, where relatively few publish. My subject areas not being in the mass market, nor would the masses have interest in my topic.
My book is about the search for my lost sister. A newly found relative read the book and emailed me that I left my great-uncle out of the book. I quickly added him and sent the book to Amazon to update.
Updating is easy, but for one problem. The author can not purchase more than one copy of a book, even if it is an update. I understand that this is true for everyone, one can not buy the original copy of a book and the update, a week or two later! Amazon will send the author the updated version, update the version of the book in the Amazon Cloud, but this might take a few days. Thus, it takes some time to see if the live links to websites included in a book, actually work.
Amazon is aware of the problem with readers wanting to purchase updates of books and I hope this issue is resolved quickly as in the case of my ongoing search for my sister, as more information is found, I hope to include it in updates to the book.
Since I had uploaded a MOBI file, the "preview" module does not include the option of seeing the HTML of the uploaded book. When I click on a live link in the book in "preview" mode, it links to the cover of my book, rather than going out to the link.
To revise a MOBI file, one has to recreate the MOBI file and upload the book once again.
Per updates, I emailed Amazon to find out if I could load a book in MOBI and update in HTML, for example, and they replied "Yes," but I decided to continue with MOBI, which was Amazon Kindle's native file, once-upon-a-time.
The "Look Inside" was immediately updated and Amazon sent me an email saying that my book, meaning my revision, was published. New customers purchasing the book would receive the revised book.
Come back to read "Marketing Your Ebook: Part 2," and follow my journey into the secrets and adventures in ebook publishing as it happens!
Sunday, July 29, 2012
ISBN's, How Many Does One Ebook Need?
My book is going into final editing, I have a possible ebook cover for Walk Forward, what do I need next?
Time to think about ISBN's for each version of my book. Since I want my book to be available in various formats, I will most probably buy the set of 10 ISBN's. I know that I will have a .pdf, ePub and maybe a few hard copies of the book down the road. I want to be able to track the book myself. I know that many books have similar titles but each has a unique ISBN.
I plan on uploading the book to Amazon, Smashwords and any vendor that will take my ebook. Down the road, I might want a hard copy too. I know that the ebook cover I made will have to be revised for a hard copy book where the cover wraps around the book. I have no idea now as to how many pages a hard copy of my book might have. In hard copy, my text might appear in larger font for my target of young adults, but then again, the book is also for adult readers.
I want to submit my book to any online publisher willing to let me upload it, thus, expect more than two book formats. Perhaps, I will publish a version with photographs and one without, this would require another ISBN! Maybe my book will have a new cover or need revisions sooner than I might expect.
Guess it is better to buy the batch of 10 than run out!
The ISBN is the unique identifier for a particular format of the book. I don't think I really need 10 ISBN's but since 10 cost the same as 2, and I am sure I need at least 3, I might as well buy the set of 10.
Are there any negatives to buying 10 ISBN's and not using them all immediately? I don't know but plan to call Bowker, the only company allowed to sell ISBN's. I wonder if there is a penalty in not assigning all 10 ISBN's in a reasonable time period? I can not imagine that it will take me 10 years to write a second book although I have been writing content for my first book for more than 20 years!
Is there a fee or penalty for holding my 10 ISBN's, which I assume will be numbers in a series? I don't know for sure, heard there was some sort of annual fee? I must find out as hate to commit to annual fees.
What about translations? I assume if someone creates a translation of the book, the new translated version will need another ISBN. If I change the cover design and a few photographs, this would require ISBN's!
Maybe my first ebook will need more revisions than I can now possibly imagine?
Ten ISBN's seems much for my first attempt at an ebook and my second book is but a vision. I have read Bowker's section on why one should buy an ISBN.
No matter the price or how many, as a librarian, I know that an ISBN is priceless!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
