Do you have a nonfiction book to promote? Do you promote it through your own website? Why not offer something free at your website in order to get people coming there? I mean, if they don’t come to your website, they may not become familiar with your book and they certainly won’t buy it.
Offer a free download and you receive the names and email addresses of those who are interested in the topic or genre of your book. So it’s also a great way for you to build your emailing list.
I’ve been offering free ebooks that would be of interest to my audience for a couple of years now. Because of this, my emailing list has grown to around 300 or 400 names. Just this week, I have had over 100 people download my free ebook. The one I am offering now is “50 Ways to Promote Your Ebook.” Before this, I had one called “50 Reasons Why You Should Write That Book.” I am working on a new one with the title “50 Ways to Prepare for Publishing Success.”
These are titles that would be of interest to someone who would purchase my books, “Publish Your Book,” “Promote Your Book” and “Talk Up Your Book,” as well as my older books on writing a book proposal, creating a freelance article-writing business and so forth. Some of these people might also be looking for an editor at some point, right? In other words, those who are interested in the free ebooklets are my audience.
But if no one is coming to your website before you offer a freebie, how are you going to get them there after you start offering it? Good question. The answer is, you’re going to spread the word through your Facebook page, at Twitter, in articles that you write for appropriate publications, in your blog and at popular blog sites that also attract your audience. If you can’t get an invitation as a guest blogger, at least leave comments at other blog sites. I mean useful comments with a brief mention of your freebie and a link to your site.
I have a wonderful client in Canada who is branding herself as an expert in a specialized type of education. She has followed this advice and has now written a couple of ebooklets to offer free at her site. Her ebooklets are enormously useful as they also include dozens of links to other resources for those who want to know more about some of the concepts she has included in her list of 50 reasons, tips, techniques. Of course, she also promotes her book in the ebooklet and her services.
Are you stymied as to what to put in an ebooklet like this? Perhaps your book is on woodworking or quilting. How about “50 Things You Can Make with Wood” or “25 Quilt Patterns for the Beginner.” For a book on relationships: “50 Ways to Surprise and Delight Your Spouse.” If your book has a travel theme: “25 Ways to Enjoy a Close-to-Home Vacation,” or “50 Ways to Bond as a Family While Traveling.”
Can you use this idea for a novel? Sure. My unpublished novel, for example, has a lot of cats in it. I might promote this book through an ebooklet titled, “25 Unusual Things Cats Sometimes do,” or “25 Ways to Enjoy Your Cat,” or “10 True and Unusual Cat Stories.”
For a Western romance novel, for example, how about ebooklets on “25 Little-Known Facts About the Old West” or “25 Tips for Writing a Love Scene.” For any type of novel, consider this: “50 Examples of Character Development.”
While you’re driving, taking a walk, working out at the gym or sitting in a boring meeting, you might start making mental notes for some of the ebooklet titles you could produce in order to entice more visitors to your website, thus let more people know about your book.
For an example of one of these freebie ebooklets, download my latest one today:
http://www.patriciafry.com
Check out my showcase of books here:
http://www.matilijapress.com