Marketing an eBook
Experience shows that marketing an ebook online is not so very different from selling a book offline, with one notable exception - the online market is much, much bigger.
It is also instant, by which I mean that you can begin selling your ebook on the very day you finish writing it and within minutes have made your first sale, or even your first 100 sales. Things can happen that fast.
As with marketing any other kind of book, you don't actually have to do this selling yourself, you can pay other people to do it for you on a commission basis through various affiliate schemes. But the really big money is in doing it yourself and for that you need a website.
There are a number of ways to approach this. You could, for example, simply put up a single sales page and then send people to it through on and offline advertising such as message boards, published articles, local newspaper ads, community notices and even bumper stickers.
Depending on the nature of your ebook all those methods can be very effective, especially if you are writing about something of specific interest to a particular neighbourhood.
For a really dynamic sales drive however, by far the best way is to build a website which establishes you as the expert in a field closely related to the subject of your ebook.
For example, let's suppose that your passion is fly-fishing and the subject of your book is "How to Make and Tie Your Own Fishing Flies".
The obvious way to market an ebook like this is to set up a website which deals with every aspect of fly-fishing, including advice on what rods to buy, reels, equipment and clothing, as well as articles on where to fish and where to stay.
Offering a couple of articles on tying flies with a link to the sales page for your book is a natural in this setting and will net you more than just book sales. You can further monetize a website of this nature by also selling the equipment you write about, even including fishing trips and hotel accommodation.
The beauty of doing this on the web is that you don't have to carry any inventory, ship any stock or get involved in any way at all apart from providing a link to the merchants themselves, who will gladly pay you a commission just for the introductions.
You don't even have to write your own material. Writers abound on the net who are willing, for a modest fee, to provide you with everything you need in the way of content. Some will even provide it for free in exchange for a link from your website to their's.
Of course, once your website is built it's there for all time and you can continue to write ebooks about your chosen field until you have an entire series dealing with every aspect of whatever happens to be your particular interest.
As already mentioned, you can even get other people to sell your ebook for you by using an affiliate scheme such as Clickbank, which has to be the easiest money you will ever make.
Finally, depending on the popularity of your ebooks subject you might also want to consider providing a hard copy as well as the electronic information product we have already discussed. These days this is simple and cheap to do by using one the of the 'print to order' publishing houses that specialize in this kind of thing.
You will find more information on aspects of marketing your ebook below.
| 
