How
to Use Free Publicity to Get Sales
Whether
you plan to sell your ebooks to customers visiting your web site
or through an online reseller, you must find ways to attract prospective
buyers who have an interest in your topic. For years, free publicity
has been among the favored choices for generating sales of paper
books for many self-publishers.
Book
reviews and other forms of publicity have resulted in millions
of book sales for authors. Publicity has been so effective in
selling my books, I never even consider paying for advertising.
Most people don't believe ads anyway, but they do rely on news
articles appearing in magazines or newspapers for making informed
decisions.
Update your web site frequently and build relationships between
your books and news items that make the headlines. Then, optimize
your web pages to rank high in search engines for keywords
related to your book's subject matter. You will attract the attention
of editors and producers looking for experts.
After
my web pages on craft business began ranking number one on the
major search engines, many publicity contacts came to me including
an online craft web site with 400,000 subscribers, a national
TV show, and the largest craft books publisher in the world..
When
your ebook is ready for distribution, send news
release announcements to magazines, articles, syndicated columnists,
web site reviewers and people of influence in your subject area.
Publishers
Weekly , Midwest
Book Review and Foreword
Magazine are just a few of the publications for the book
trade and library industry which include reviews of ebooks.
See
these sites for locating editors that might be interested in your
story:
Reporters.net
- Search their database of reporters looking for stories on specific
subjects.
Locate
reviewers of many types of books, including ebooks at:
Interviews
Online
author interviews and live chat sessions provide more opportunities
to publicize your expertise. Many sites want to bring live experts
to their viewers thereby increasing the site's perceived value.
For instance, BarnesandNoble
sponsors a section where readers can tap into live author chats
or read interviews. Also see:
For more listings,
do a keyword search for the phrase 'author interviews' at any
major search engine and see Ebook
Publishing Success:
Awards
Winning
awards will earn you publicity for your ebooks since the winner
is usually announced worldwide in newspapers, magazines and online.
Be sure to add your awards to your collection of testimonials
and review quotes. The following award programs are for writers
and publishers:
Writing
articles
Writing
articles provides the most cost effective splash for your efforts.
Instead of spending money on advertising which no one believes
anyway, go for publicity through writing articles. Where a book
review might give you a paragraph or two of mention, feature articles
may run two or more full pages. If you were to buy two pages of
advertising space in most major magazines, the cost could run
$20,000 to $50,000 or more.
As
an expert in your subject, you have knowledge or access to information
that is of interest to special audiences. Read recent issues of
publications your prospective customers buy. See what kind of
topics they cover and how current news might relate to your ebook
to give you ideas for articles to submit to editors.
Large
content related web sites are always looking for newer and greater
content to provide their visitors. Most online editors will allow
you to include links to your web site.
Additional
likely prospects for your material will be newsletters and ezines.
Check the lists of ezine and newsletter directories in Ebook
Publishing Success. Also search at the directories and
search engines for online forums, ezines, newsletters and magazines
related to your topics. Once you have a list of target publications,
inquire with each editor or manager on how they prefer to receive
submissions.
Upload
your articles to forums on the subject matter you are writing
about. For instance, AOL
and Compuserve have forums
organized by subject categories. Many different topics are discussed.
Often, you can also track the number of times each article was
downloaded.
Upload
your articles for use by editors and journalists at these web
sites (partial list - for the complete list of sites, see Ebook
Publishing Success):
http://www.certificate.net/wwio/
http://ezinearticles.com
http://www.ideamarketers.com
http://www.freesticky.com/stickyweb/
http://www.dime-co.com
http://www.goarticles.com/
Articles
for ezines should be brief. Most run usually 300 to 500 words.
Sentences should be short and newsy. Use a title that catches
interest. Include a brief bio of yourself and include your site's
URL somewhere in the article.
Where
to find media contact information
There
are over 11,000 print magazines published in North America alone
and over 200,000 editorial contacts for print and broadcast media.
Magazines
provide great publicity for your paperbound book sales because
people hang on to magazines for years, whereas they often throw
out their newspapers every week. As I was writing this, I received
an order in the mail with payment for a book I haven't publicized
since 1993, yet someone read about it in an old magazine review.
To
locate directories of magazines, newspapers, syndicated columnists,
TV and radio media, see my list of media
sources online or visit your library for these directories
or visit their online sites:
See
related article on formatting
news releases.
[back
to article list]
 This
article is copyrighted and excerpted from the book Your
Guide to Ebook Publishing Success by James
Dillehay, past member of the advisory board to the National
Craft Association.
buy
now
No
portion of this material may be published, resold or reproduced
in any form including electronically for any purposes.
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