Greetings, blogosphere. Today’s post will be a short one, as I’m off to my cousin’s graduation this afternoon and then home for Father’s Day weekend.
As usual, I was wandering around the internet looking for interesting things when I came upon this free eBook on Smashwords.com. It’s called Smashwords Book Marketing Guide, by Mark Coker, and it’s very informative. Basically, he goes over 33 tips on how to market your eBook. I was hesitant about downloading it, because I figured it would just be promotion for Smashwords, and it was, but it also had some pretty great ideas for marketing. I’ll share two or three of the tips below, and then I encourage you to go download the eBook. It is, after all, free!
Tip #1: Update your email signature. Your email signature is one of the most powerful marketing tools at your disposal, yet few authors take advantage of it. Most of us send emails to dozens if not hundreds of people each week, and each of these people (often friends, family, business associates, fans) represent potential customers for our book. By updating (or creating) an email signature, you’re providing email recipients a low-key, unobtrusive path to discover and purchase your book. Nearly every email program and service allows you to create a single email signature file, usually a simple text file, that then automatically appends to every email you write.
Tip #18: Invite other Authors to Post to your Blog. If you operate your own blog, invite your favorite authors to write guest posts for your blog. This is a great way to offer your fans interesting new content that increases the value of your blog. It also helps fans of the other author learn more about you.
Tip #26: Create a reader’s guide at the end of your book. You’ve probably seen these in print books: Publishers append short discussion guides for reading clubs and book groups at the ends of their books. Make it fun and easy for a book group to discuss you book. While most of us like to read books in private, we enjoy talking about books with our social circles, both online and offline. If you create a reading guide, be sure to advertise it in your book description with a simple statement such as, “Contains a helpful discussion guide for reading groups.”
Tip #27: Insert sample chapters from your other books. The last page of your book is valuable real estate. Your reader just loved your book, and they want to read more from you, so give them more book samples to read at the end of your book.
He also lists a variety of top eBook listing sites that you can put your book on for maximum exposure at the end of the document. A lot of them deal with free eBooks, but some of them list normal eBooks as well.
So check out the eBook — again, here’s the link to the site where you can download it for free.
And now for something completely different:
Michelle Proulx - Author 
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