Your E-book is your calling card

Writing an e-book or a series of e-books is a demanding process involving time and dedication. However, once published, your e-book can be your best friend when it comes to generating publicity for you as an author or expert in your field. Promoted correctly, your e-book can lead to future commissions for your writing skills, or even guest speaker requests from peers in your chosen niche market.

Promoting your e-book is not just about telling potential customers how buying your publication can help solve their problems. It is also about building your brand image. Essentially, this means that your promotional strategy should include some form of social interaction between you and your customer. Just saying ‘thank you’ to someone who has bought your e-book is not enough. You need to follow through by opening a channel for dialogue between you and your customer, much in the same way a customer service department does when a consumer enters a store. There are several ways you can do this.

1. Your e-book is your calling card so you should include your contact details in the footer of your e-book pages. This will allow buyers of your publication to contact you if they have any queries related to your e-book’s content. More often than not, these queries will be requests for further information. When you receive such requests, it is important that you respond positively by supplying the requested information, or by directing the enquirer to a relevant and accessible source that will meet their request. The key here is to build up a rapport between you and your readers.

2. Do offer a ‘satisfaction or your money back guarantee’ with your e-book. This demonstrates that you are confident about the value and quality of your e-book offering. A ‘satisfaction or your money back guarantee’ also helps to build trust around you and your publication. Consumer trust is intrinsic to building a positive brand image around you and your work.

3. Include some free pages for potential customers to review, after which they can leave a comment on, or rate, what they have read.

4. Create a community blog around your e-book’s content. This will encourage social interaction between you and your readers. Blogging is a handy feedback tool as visitors can post comments on what you have written.

5. Don’t make outlandish claims about what your e-book can deliver. This is a sure fire way to destroy your credibility as an expert in your chosen field. Instead, be honest and forthright about the content of your e-book. Tell it how it is. Your integrity and reputation as an author are assets that you can ill afford to lose.

6. While publishing testimonials help to build a positive image around your e-book, you shouldn’t be afraid to publish any criticism about your work either. Don’t abdicate your ability to control criticism by not responding to anyone who has a genuine grievance against what you have written. Responding to criticism positively is a great opportunity for you to demonstrate your excellent ‘customer service’ skills. Use criticism of your work as a feedback tool.

7. Include a bio at the end of your e-book. Your bio is an opportunity to stake out your credentials as a knowledgeable author on the subject you are writing about. Again, honesty is the best policy here. You don’t need to be a university professor or a college graduate to be a knowledgeable author. Your ‘hands-on experience’ of a given topic is worth more than a college degree without experience. The online ‘expert industry’ is more about exchanging life experiences than it is about exchanging ideas on academic theory.

In the final analysis, your e-book should be treated as your calling card and not just another product you sell.