Post #210 April 20, 2020

“Ebook Marketing”

I’m dedicating this post to ongoing marketing efforts.  When you write books that are available as ebooks on web sites such as Smashwords.com or other ebook retailers like Barnes and Noble and Apple ibooks, you have to be aware that ebooks are marketed somewhat differently from print books.

In ebooks, downloads are key.  Full or partial downloads are the ebook equivalent of browsing in a bookstore.  Since many of my ebooks are set to free in price (more on that in a moment), downloads are the best barometer of interest from readers. 

Now back to marketing.  Why set an ebook to free?  There are many reasons but one is simply this: some of my titles weren’t being downloaded that much.  Smashwords offers all kind of tools and advice on ebook marketing.  If your ebook isn’t moving, you’re not making any sales.  If it’s dead in the water, make it free.  I tried this myself and it works.  I saw an immediate spike in the affected ebooks.  I think it has to do with readers being willing to take a chance on an unknown author…they’re intrigued enough to read the description and peruse the cover image, and being free may just push them to click on ‘download’ and take a chance.

It’s all about building an audience.  Of course, it goes without saying that your book needs to be well-written enough to keep them coming back…in fact, your book needs to grab the reader by the lapel and smack them upside the head, then knock their socks off.  But then that’s true of any book, print or ebook.

Last year, I had over 24,000 downloads across all titles.  Due to these numbers, many of my writer friends suggested I started putting small prices back on some of my titles.  Toward that end, I have priced episodes of my new series Quantum Troopers Return at $0.99 per episode.   So far, downloads have been disappointingly minimal.  I’ve left all other titles free for now.  What does this mean?  There are several possibilities I’ll have to face.  One, maybe the stories just aren’t that interesting.  Two, with so much of my work free, potential readers are balking at putting out anything (even 99 cents) for new titles.  Three, there is more I could do to jazz up downloads of these new titles.  More on that later.  

In previous posts, I have mentioned perusing covers.  Don’t let anyone kid you: covers matter…a lot.  Whether on a web site or in a bookstore, covers grab attention and direct reader eyes to your book.  There are plenty of authors whose ebooks were wallowing in the doldrums and who sprang for snazzy professional covers and found big spikes in their sales and downloads.  You can’t afford not to do that.

Having said that, I plan on doing the very same thing.  Six of my early titles (the Johnny Winger books) are part of a series called Tales of the Quantum Corps.  My next step to rev up downloads in this series (note that all books in the series have been priced at FREE) is to spring for a professional ebook cover designer to work with me and come up with a series of themed covers for the series…covers that have a consistent, eye-popping look with minor variations to distinguish the different titles. 

I’ll probably try this with the Quantum Troopers Return series too, once I get further into it and possibly with other titles as well as potential follow-ons to that story series.  And I’ll let you know what happens.

There are plenty of other ebook marketing techniques offered by Smashwords, such as preorders, but I’ll cover those in later posts.

Next post will come on April 27.  In that post, I’ll go back to the world of The Farpool Stories and let you know what I am thinking regarding future titles over the next few years.

See you then.

Phil B.