Recently, on my Facebook page, I received a long email from a self-publisher about eBook marketing. He wrote, in part:

I ran into your website when I was reading an eBook from E-junkie [on self-publishing, ie, Publishing Your First eBook: An eBook for aspiring authors and self-publishers]. ... After reading the eBook 3 times, I outlined 8 different eBooks that I know I could write pretty easily, based on my expert knowledge. ... I wanted to see if you have any advice for me as I'm entering the final stage of completing my content, because I know there is next stage with marketing, website, etc. 

This brings me to the title of this post.

The Easiest Part of Self-Publishing an eBook

What most self-publishers don’t realize is that writing an eBook is the easy part. As I relayed to this writer, eBook marketing is where the real elbow grease comes in. And there are two things most don’t realize about this.

eBook Marketing: What You MUST Know to Be Successful

(i) Never Do What You Can’t Afford to Repeat: What I mean by this is, don’t invest in eBook marketing tactics that you can’t afford to continue. Why? Because marketing must be consistent to be effective.

eBook Marketing: An Example Using a Real Budget

For example, let’s say you have $1,000 budget to start with. So, you decide to run a pay per click ad campaign, which runs through that in a couple of months (and this is VERY easy to do, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing).

Let’s say you’re lucky enough to sell 200 eBooks during this time period (and I’m being very generous here) at $3.99, a common price for many eBooks sold on Amazon for Kindle. At this price, you’re earning approximately $2.80 per eBook sold (after Amazon takes their 30% cut).

So you net $560 – which doesn’t recoup your initial investment. Now what?

You’re going to have to switch eBook marketing strategies to start seeing sales again; in essence starting from scratch. This is why you should always start with the end game in mind, which brings me to the next tip, which is . . .

(ii) Create a Doable eBook Marketing Strategy – for the Long Haul: Think a year out, ie, what are you willing to commit to – and can afford to do -- for the next year.

If you have the money and can afford to run a $500 per month pay-per-click eBook marketing campaign, then go for it. FYI, be sure to assess results along the way to make sure it’s paying off. But if you can’t afford this, start with no-cost and low-cost marketing you can ALWAYS afford to do.

This is why I love article marketing. It doesn’t cost you anything but time. And, it brings results for years because content stays live on the web forever (unless you remove it or a site where the content appears goes down).

Free eBook Marketing Tactics I Use All the Time

Some other free forms of eBook marketing I do all the time are:

(i) Social Media: I interact on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook regularly;

(ii) Blogging: I update two blogs/websites weekly where I promote my eBooks; and

(ii) Newsletter writing: I also reach out to subscribers via two newsletters per week.

Now, does all of this take time?

Yep, you bet!

Earning Four Figures Per Year Selling eBooks Online

But, I’ve built my following over the years via these outlets to where I earn – since late 2009 / early 2010 -- four figures per month in eBook sales (five figures per year). May dream is to break the five-figure per month barrier – and I have no doubt that it’s coming. But, it takes marketing, marketing and more eBook marketing (and producing more titles).

Good luck!

Author Bio: 
Yuwanda has written and self-published over 50 eBooks. If you found the info here insightful,  get more in the complete package on how to self-publish an eBook. It will help you not only write an eBook in a few days, but learn how to market it and start getting sales within a week – really! Also, feel free to contact her with your eBook writing and self-publishing questions.