Publishing E-Books For Dummies

Selling Your E-Book via Your Own Blog or E-Mail List

Whether or not your e-book is available directly from your website or a web page (see Chapters 9 and 10), you can use your blog or e-mail list to promote it. You simply include a link to your e-book’s page at Amazon.com or on other major e-retailers’ sites.

When you launch your e-book, let your existing audience know about it. If you’ve been blogging for a few months, or if you’ve started an e-mail list where readers can opt in to receive updates about your e-book (and your other projects), get in touch with your audience, and point them toward your new e-book.

If your e-book isn’t yet finished, you can still start a blog or an e-mail list. In fact, you produce better results by building the readership of your blog or e-mail list before your e-book is ready — that way, you have plenty of people to contact on launch day.

Comparing blogs and e-mail lists

Blogs and e-mail lists are different beasts, and readers engage with them differently. This list can help sort them out:

Blog: A chronological list of commentary on a website. Readers can dip in and out, reading only a couple of posts or several, and they can easily share links to your blog and its posts with their friends via Facebook or Twitter or other social media sites.

E-mail ...