How to Sell and Market your Ebook in 10 Easy Steps

Copyright (c) 2007 Donna Gunter

Electronic books, or ebooks, are one of the quickest ways to make yourself an infopreneur, or someone who makes money by selling information. As a service business owner, it's also a simple way to sell the information that you have spent countless hours amassing to all of those who want to buy what you know but who cannot afford to hire you as a service provider.

The most effective way to market your ebook is via a one-page website. If you already have a website, I recommend that you set up a separate stand-alone page for this ebook. Most domain registrars will permit you to forward and mask your product domain to an internal page of your current website. If you don't have a site, you can create a one-page site with its own hosting.

Here's what you need to know to successfully market your ebook via a one-page website:

1. An identifiable target market. Ebooks work best as a product for a very specific niche market, like an ebook on how to teach your dog tricks, how to effectively meditate to relieve stress, or how to find a green career. You need to be able to identify and describe your target market, from determining what the target market needs and what they'll pay for (as well as how much they will pay) to what publications they read, what groups/associations do they belong to, and where they hang out both on- and offline. Make sure you understand what your target market needs and how to reach them before proceeding to the next step.

2. A domain name. The domain name for your ebook site should mirror or closely resemble your product name or a prominent feature of your product. So, for example, if you are a hypnotherapist and you have a podcast that you're selling on how to use hypnosis to lose weight, then you'd want to try and get a domain name like LoseWeightFast.com. Try and get the .com version of your domain name if possible, but if that's not available, seek out the hyphenated version of the .com domain name.

3. A give-away. You have two goals for your ebook site: get the contact info from your visitors and convert them into paying customers. Because not everyone will buy your primary product (thus providing you with their contact information), you need another strategy to collect your prospect's information. The best way to obtain contact info from a visitor is to create a free giveaway that's closely related to the product that you're selling in which the content is so compelling that the visitor gladly parts with his/her name and primary email address to obtain the free giveaway. By giving you their contact information, they have become a warm lead and you can start to develop a relationship with them. You can then develop a series of 3-6 follow-up autoresponders to upsell them to purchasing your product.

4. A merchant account. In order to collect payments, you need to be able to take credit card payments online and provide electronic product delivery. I use and highly recommend PracticePaySolutions.com, a company that works with many coaches, consultants and speakers. Your merchant account company needs to offer a "virtual terminal", which lets you enter and process transactions online and interfaces with your shopping cart program.

The most commonly used virtual terminal is that provided by Authorize.net. If you don't want to invest in a merchant account, you can begin by using third-party processors like PayPal or ClickBank, but they offer less flexibility than a full merchant service.

6. Shopping cart software. Ultimately, your shopping cart software will be a workhorse for you and enable you to automate many functions of your online business. The cart that I highly recommend is KickStartCart.com, which offers a great deal of flexibility in how you list and bundle products, gives buyers a 24-hour download URL for downloading your electronic product, has built-in autoresponders so you can automatically follow up with your buyers, and provides an email broadcast function so that you can send out special notices to the customers or prospects on your list.

7. Sales letter page. This is the primary sales page of your ebook website, containing a long sales letter with benefits of your product and testimonials of others who've used the product. In many ways, this has now become the electronic version of the 6-10 page direct sales letters that used to be sent to us regularly via snail mail. The formula for writing an effective one-page sales letter site includes an attention-getting headline, a strong opening statement, body of the letter that outlines the features and benefits of what you're offering, the actual offer itself, several testimonials from happy purchasers, and then a request for the sale. Most sales letter pages are constructed very similarly. If you look and compare other one page websites, you'll find this style used again and again.

8. Follow-up auto responders. It's always easier to sell to someone who has already purchased from you than to convert a new prospect to a customer. Therefore, the ability to continue to reach out and "touch" your customers is key in developing a relationship with them so that they continue to buy. I create a series of 3-6 follow-up autoresponders that are sent out over the 3 weeks following a purchase to check in with the purchaser and to interest the purchaser in another item.

9. Traffic to the site. Because your ebook site is only one page, it will be virtually ignored in the organic search engine ranking process. There's simply not enough content to warrant a high ranking on any keyword you might choose. The easiest way to drive traffic to a one-page web site is to purchase keywords, or pay-per-click advertising. Google's Adwords is the best-known pay-per-click advertiser. You can also generate traffic to this site by holding teleclasses or webinars on some topic covered in your ebook, creating a series of articles with a link back to your product in the resource box, or create a blog or an article directory devoted to the topic of your ebook.

10. Additional selling features. Once you've created you one page ebook website , you may want to add additional selling features, especially if the ebook is priced more than $50. You could create additional pages in which you print a chapter excerpt, your table of contents, or an invitation to sign up for your product's affiliate program.

Ebooks are one of the quickest and inexpensive ways to help you establish your expertise and create another source of income for your business. Follow this simple ebook marketing plan and begin selling your information today!