In the first place, I've discovered that selling online is not much different to selling offline, except that you have a much larger group of potential customers. You also have a lot more competition.
Secondly, advertising pays, but not in the way that many self-styled experts would have you believe. The real secret of
selling an ebook online on a consistent basis is not so much "in the list", but to have a steady flow of visitors to your website that come from the
search engines.
Why should that be the case? Because those people are already looking for the information you provide, and they may be willing to pay for it. They have entered a search phrase into, say, Google. And in return Google has presented them with countless pages of websites linked to that particular search word or phrase.
The numbers are huge. Every single day millions of people all over the world are searching Google and similar search engines for information, goods, books, travel tickets etc. You name it, someone somewhere is looking for it right now.
So it makes sense to concentrate your online marketing efforts on tapping into this vast customer base. It takes time and effort, but it can be done; largely because the vast majority of your competitors (if you have any) will have neither the knowledge nor the inclination to do the same thing.
What you need to do is optimize your site for the search engines, let them know you are there, and make sure there are reasons enough for them to give you a high popularity rating. There are plenty of people ready and willing to sell you the information to do this, and more than enough willing to charge you the earth to do it for you. Most of them don't, in fact, achieve anything other than lowering the contents of your wallet.
I can't emphasize this enough - learn to do it yourself. It's not difficult, although it can be a little time-consuming, and the information you need is free. So is some of the software, which in any case is by no means essential.
Now, if you decide to build your website using either of
the all-in-one packages I have recommended, you don't really need to read much further. They provide just about everything necessary
Even so, you might like to know what you are letting yourself in for when it comes to search engine optimization, so I've suggested some further reading below. Thge first of these is really a complete SEO course in its own right, and if you follow it you'll soon find yourself to be quite an expert. It is, as I hope you would expect from me by now, free and so is the software that comes with it.
Apply the lessons, and you'll see the search engine rating of your website take off.
That's really all I have to say on this subject, except for one more thing; don't overlook offline advertising just because you have a website. Using traditional methods such as local newspaper ads, community notice boards and even bumper stickers can pay handsome dividends, particularly in the early days.
Remember this; when you write, publish and market your own e-book, every cent in sales belongs to you, unless you pay commissions to third parties. So one newspaper ad that achieves, say, four sales is a triumph as far as you are concerned, depending on the cost of the ad and the price of your book of course.
Having said that, let's take a look at Search Engine Optimization:
