e-books

Hi Heartbreaker,
YOu're off to a good start by thinking about this so soon. The biggest PR mistake most authors make is waiting to long to begin their PR plan.

My best advice is to answer the following questions and build a PR plan around the answers:
1. What is your sales goal?
2. Who is your target audience?
3. Where does your target audience hang out, both online and offline?
4. Does your book tie into a trend or cause?
5. Can you create any workshops that target writers?
6. How much time can you devote to PR every week?
7. How much money can you spend?

Those are just some basic things that will get you started. I'm a PR coach for authors and I teach an online class called PR Boot Camp. If you'd like more info, shoot me an e-mail: [email protected]

Good luck!
Louise Ahern

www.louiseknottahern.com
coming soon! Boom!PR For Authors.

It depends on the genre of book and how it is being distributed?

veinglory said:

It depends on the genre of book and how it is being distributed?

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agree! it would be a good idea to talk to your publisher and/or agent and get some ideas together for promotion

I've been working on an ebook project as well. This site is a gold mine for learning how to build and promote an ebook business: http://www.marketingtips.com/newsletters/ just click on the left hand side to whichever topic you want covered and there are various articles about it.

Thanks for the link - I'll check it out.

I'm based in New Zealand so I've been thinking of creating an ebook so I can sell further afield

That's cool. What is the book about? If you don't mind sharing...

The best way to sell further afeild is to sell to a publisher further afeild. Epublishers are really not interested in the nationality of the writer -- you just have to watch the payment methods.

veinglory said:

The best way to sell further afeild is to sell to a publisher further afeild. Epublishers are really not interested in the nationality of the writer -- you just have to watch the payment methods.

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Well I read the article in last week's AW newsletter by Julie Fast about selling her ebooks directly from her website and she seemed to be doing pretty well, so I thought I'd try to do something similar. I didn't plan to approach an ebook publisher, I was going to create something myself that can be downloaded direct from my website.

My current thinking is to build a platform through electronic sales before approaching an overseas publisher.

Unfortunately it turns out that my NZ publisher wasn't a good choice. Very nice chap but he doesn't actively seek overseas sales, doesn't attend any international book fairs or anything like that. It's more luck than anything else if he sells the overseas rights so it's up to me.

As a non-fiction author I need to build my platform before I can approach an international publisher/agent. I'm working on it LOL with my blog and website and ezinearticles etc etc. My platform locally is ok (not famous but some recognition), internationally not so great.

Am hoping that being a finalist for the 2006 Weblog Awards might help...

As a non-fiction author, IMHO, you need to write a proposal and approach a non-fiction publisher just like they request in their guidelines. They tend to not be terribly interested in self-publishing of any stripe but do like a good proposal. (I'm contracted with Blackwell, as a previously unpublished New Zealand writer).

My thinking may be wrong but I'll tell you my angle and you might be able to make better suggestions...

First I already have 2 books published but with nothing exciting in the way of sales. I have a third book in the pipeline.

However as it is in the self-help genre I thought I would look at selling it as an ecourse, because I think I might reach more people that way and make more money. So I would basically send them chapters and worksheets and not worry so much about traditionally publishing which, let's face it, doesn't pay. I think I got < $1/hour for the time I've put into my books.

A lot of people do this successfully - here is the link to the article from AW that I was talking about. Uh oh, can't find it but it was about a week back (maybe last week's newsletter, or the week before). Someone wrote about Julie Fast of Bipolar Happens and how she sells a lot of product electronically.

I'm interested in your writing, I thought you wrote fiction: fantasy & or erotic. Do you also write NF? I'm not familiar with Blackwell but I'll look into it. I do recall that you are from NZ you were one of the first people I met when I came here. I was looking for help getting my books on Amazon but you have to be a US resident or have US warehousing.

aha!!! i finally worked it out.
here is the article from the aw library http://www.absolutewrite.com/novels/julie_fast.htm

heartbreaker said:

ShannonC-- Thanks very much! I will check that out.
Good luck with your e-book, too. Is it a romance?

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Your welcome, there is lots of good info there, although some of it may not be directly targeted towards what you are looking to do... with my book I'd actually be looking to create a site to sell it myself. (it's a diet/fitness ebook). Sort of similar to this one http://www.vincedelmontefitness.com - he's a friend of mine and has done very well with his so far and has been helping me a lot in the process.

Good luck with yours!

I also write popular science under my real name--and I would agree it is not a big money earner, for me at least. But self-help is always a popular genre which can sell well either way. So long as you can drive good traffic to your website it should work well. A few things I would suggest is an active forum, an accessible and frequnetly updated website, and some really clear faqs aboud ebooks and how to download and read them--a lot of people in your market probably haven;pt used them before...

thanks

veinglory said:

A few things I would suggest is an active forum, an accessible and frequnetly updated website, and some really clear faqs aboud ebooks and how to download and read them--a lot of people in your market probably haven;pt used them before...

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thanks for your suggestions

i set up a forum a couple of months ago but so far most of the traffic is from spammers grrrr. however i have redesigned my website so i can do some more publicity now. i hope to get some extra traffic from my press release about being a finalist in the weblog awards

i was thinking of downloading some of my seminars onto mp3s but i have to find out how that works lol

Spammer are bad currently. It often takes a little boost to get a forum going so new people will join. I generally enlist a few friends or, if necessary, a few sockpuppet accounts.

that was my philosophy. i had a few friends who were posting but they only lasted about a week LOL

i did think about the sockpuppet accounts but it felt dishonest, however there is a level at which people won't participate. it's one of those catch-22, no one wants to be the first person to post...

so yes i will have to get back into encouraging friends to post and adding some of my own

i will also be teaching some emotional eating courses next year via teleseminar and in real life and i will be providing the forum address to students so they can help and support each other outside of class.

thanks again for your help