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Welcome to The Book Marketing Action Podcast with Becky Robinson and Christy Kirk! In this episode, Becky and Christy share how an ebook promotion strategy might land your next book on an Amazon bestseller list.
In last week’s podcast episode, we mentioned a fiction book author who used an ebook promotion as a means of distributing her book to a wider audience, and as a result, she received hundreds of organic reviews of her book. This week, we dive deeper into the topic of ebook promotions.
What is an ebook promotion? Ebook promotions are when the digital version of your book is discounted through companies that typically have large email lists. When you work with a partnered company, you get exposure to their entire email list which is extremely valuable to you as an author. Your book is getting in front of people who would have never been exposed to it otherwise.
Why should you do an ebook promotion? It might seem counterintuitive because you want to sell your book and make money, and a marketing tactic we are recommending is to discount your book or give it away for free. We recommend this tactic because it widens your audience, grows your Amazon reviews, and gets more people interested in your work. At the end of the day, selling books is important but if you’re writing leadership and business books, your real goal is to get your ideas into the world.
An added bonus to ebook promotions is higher Kindle rankings. By selling an increased number of books, due to the lower cost associated, your ranking goes up and gives you better chances at reaching the Kindle bestseller list. So when people are searching for books in your genre, they are more likely to come across your Kindle edition because it is ranked higher on the Kindle bestseller list. Therefore, you are not only getting additional sales of your book at the discounted price, but you’re also making your book more discoverable on Amazon.
Here are popular ebook promotion websites that we recommend. Keep in mind that if you want to do an ebook promotion through one of these services, you not only discount your book but also pay a fee.
- Bookbub is one of the most popular and talked about websites because they have an extensive email list.
- Riffle is also a very popular option.
- Free Booksy is ONLY for those who offer their Kindle version free for a limited time.
- Bargain Booksy is if you have your Kindle version listed for $0.99 to $5.99.
- New in Books is for books that are no more than 90 days old.
When should you do an ebook promotion? While it’s enticing to do an ebook promotion early on, we don’t recommend an ebook promotion during launch week because you want to give your book the opportunity to drive all the revenue it can at your list price. As you think about your long-term book marketing strategy, we recommend doing an ebook promotion 6 months after your launch to bring new life to your book.
If you’re preparing to launch a new book and you have another book that’s been out for a while, you could do an ebook promotion of your first or previous book(s) to bring awareness to you as an author. So when people buy your ebook deal, they’ll see you have a new book for pre-order.
Today’s actions steps:
- Get familiar with the ebook promotion websites. Subscribe to one, two, or all of the sites above as a reader to see the types of books they include (it’s free!).
- Follow-up and understand the websites from an author’s perspective. Do some personal research about the sites we’ve featured to find out what it takes to sign up and the price to feature your book.
- Coordinate with your publisher. Check with your publisher to see if they are willing to work with you on an ebook promotion. If you are self-published, you can skip this step.
Let us know below what action steps you will take today. If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to cover, please email Becky Robinson here and Christy Kirk here.
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I am the founder/CEO of the Weaving Influence team, the author of Reach: Creating the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause, and the host of the Book Marketing Action Podcast. I’m a wife and mom of three kids, and I enjoy running, reading, writing, coffee, and dark chocolate.