Avoid These 5 Book Marketing Pitfalls
Believe it or not, marketing your ebook might be as important, if not more important, than writing it in the first place. How? Well, think about it, self-publishing has made creating ebooks a piece of cake. For readers, finding a good ebook is like finding a needle in a haystack. What’s the use of writing an ebook if no one gets to read it? That’s where marketing comes in.
Good marketing means readers will hear about your ebook and want to buy it. Which is why we’re bringing you 5 of the most common marketing mistakes writers make and how to right those mistakes.
1. Targeting the Wrong Audience
You, like most writers, may be more confident in writing about something in particular, but do you know how to get to the people that would be interested in it? This shouldn’t be hard to figure out. If you are not aware of where your book will be most welcomed already, research and find out. Since you are pushing out content, making sure it gets to the right audience is important. That is why audience research is advised even before you start writing. While doing this, try to understand your target audience, their passions, how you can answer their questions, how you can speak their language and write accordingly. This will boost your marketing.
2. Writing Poor Descriptions
Now, the first thing your potential readers will get to read will be the description of your book. Which is why you really don’t want to mess it up. This part is actually what tells them what they need to know about the book. Since you wrote the book, you know which parts are most important to you and the story as a whole so that you could highlight them for your potential readers. If you do it right, you can intrigue them into wanting to know more about the book and make them want to buy it. The description must be comprehensive. You must edit and proofread it properly to avoid any grammar, punctuation and spelling errors since they could become a put off for potential readers.
Don’t worry, we have 10 Tips to Write a Book Blurb That Sells to help you out.
3. Neglecting SEO
SEO is the livewire of digital marketing, and you can’t escape it. If you have haven’t heard of SEO before, it stands for Search Engine Optimization, it’s where you use particular keywords to describe or refer to your book, from title to description and any marketing material with regards to it. Those keywords are later on used by potential readers searching for a particular book they want to read. By making sure your content has enough use of the keyword in question, you ensure that your book is one of the top results that come up for them. If you fail to do this, your book will remain hidden to those who may have actually enjoyed it had it gotten the right exposure. You have to do some keyword research and also apply your intuition and initiative to unearth the likely keywords that your potential readers will search with. Another way to understand more about SEO and the right keywords would be to search for other ebooks and understand the keywords their author used.
4. Overlooking the Cover
Many people believe in the adage that says ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ and that the covers of ebooks sold online aren’t important anyway. But the truth of the matter is that even online, people prefer things that are very compelling and attractive. Remember that an ebook’s cover is the first actual thing a reader will see even before they get to the description if it catches their eyes, then they’ll want to read more and get to the description. Think of an ebook cover as a front you will present to the readers that will represent the book, a little like your profile picture on social media. A plain cover or a cover with only text may not be good for you. So, to make things simple, humans love good visuals, a book cover that serves that point will help them want to know more about the book, which in turn translates to sales.
The perfect cover for your ebook is essential, so here are 9 Ebook Cover Tips for Beginners.
5. Planning late or not at all
As for the last point, which honestly is the most important one here, is that you should understand that whenever you fail to plan in any project, you have planned to fail. Your ebook marketing project is not exempt from this reality. So, you must have a well thought out marketing plan even before the ebook is ready. What are the objectives of your book, what result do you want it to achieve, and what’s the best plan that will get this done.
Keep in mind that tools such as a good landing page, guest blogs, use of introductions from experts in the field or your ebook’s niche, as well as social media ads can be your biggest weapons to help you come up with a great marketing plan. Ensure that you have the perfect marketing plan before you embark on this journey to get the most out of it. In fact, having a blog full of valuable content can be a source of material of itself, you can learn how to Turn Your Blog Posts into an Ebook in Minutes too.
Conclusion
If you avoid falling into the pitfalls of any of these mistakes, you’ll manage to professionally market your ebook properly and reap the fruits of your labor. It would be a great shame to have spent time writing your ebook, or thinking it over if you’re going to fail to sell it. So do the work, it’ll be worth it.
