Smashwords Book Marketing Guide - How to Market any Book for Free (Smashwords Guides) [Kindle Edition]

Mark Coker (Author)

Book Description

Learn how to market any book. This popular book marketing primer has helped nearly 100,000 authors and publishers dramatically improve their book marketing results.

The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide contains practical, easy-to-implement advice on how to market any book. 37 simple, do-it-yourself marketing tips explain not what you can do to market your book, but also explain the context and thinking behind each recommendation. The marketing techniques apply equally well to both ebooks and print books.

Here's what you'll find in the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide:

Table of Contents

Introduction: About the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide
Background on Smashwords
Setting expectations
How Smashwords helps authors and publishers market books
Adopting a proactive marketing mindset
Marketing starts now
Hyperlinks help readers discover books
The importance of authors helping authors

37 Marketing Tips (all free to implement!)
Tip #1 – Update your email signature
Tip #2 – Post a notice on your web site or blog
Tip #3 – Contact your friends, family, co-workers and fans
Tip #4 – Post a notice to your social networks
Tip #5 – Update your message board signatures
Tip #6 – How to reach readers with Twitter
Tip #7 – Publish more than one book to create a multiplier effect
Tip #8 – Advertise your other books in each book you publish
Tip #9 – Make it easy for your readers to connect with you
Tip #10 – Issue a press release on a free PR wire service
Tip #11 – Join HARO, Help-a-reporter-online for free press leads
Tip #12 – Encourage fans to purchase and review your book
Tip #13 – Write thoughtful reviews for other books
Tip #14 – Participate in online forums
Tip #15 – Experiment with coupons
Tip #16 – Write a blog
Tip #17 – Write guest columns for blogs
Tip #18 – Invite other authors to post to your blog
Tip #19 – Do Q&A interviews of other authors on your blog
Tip #20 – Join the conversation on blogs
Tip #21 – Organize a blog tour
Tip #22 – Use Google Alerts to discover where the conversations are taking place
Tip #23 – Leverage YouTube videos to reach readers
Tip #24 – Print up business cards
Tip #25 – Encourage your fans to become affiliate marketers of your book
Tip #26 – Create a reader’s guide at the end of your book
Tip #27 – Insert sample chapters from your other books
Tip #28 – Do a sample chapters swap with another author
Tip #29 – Invite other authors to join you at Smashwords
Tip #30 – Promote your book to the top ebook listing sites
Tip #31 – Read the Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success
Tip #32 – Upgrade your cover image
Tip #33 – Share these marketing tips with your fellow authors!
Tip #34 – Create an online calling card with About.me
Tip #35 – Create a presentation and upload it to SlideShare.net
Tip #36 – Join LinkedIn, post links to your books
Tip #37 – Do a presentation at your local library on ebook publishing

Other Kindle Books by Mark Coker
Smashwords Style Guide (how to format and produce an ebook)
The 10-Minute PR Checklist - How to Earn the Publicity You Deserve
Boob Tube (a novel about soap operas)
Connect with Mark Coker

Product Details

• File Size: 260 KB
• Print Length: 43 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Smashwords (June 25, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004XR57PE
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,705 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
  • #4 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Education & Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides > Publishing & Books > Authorship
  • #4 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Business & Investing > Reference > Writing

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid but basic November 25, 2011

By erikcc

Format:Kindle Edition

The publisher of Smashwords does see the future and it's not with regular publishers but self publishing and epub. The only issue with this is that many epublished books are not edited and proof read. The second issue is that most epublished books are not marketed or advertised in anyway so most ebooks will sell very poorly and very few will do well. And the ones that do well will get picked up by the large publishers so they can put muscle behind it and then make even more money. The advice he gives in the book is excellent but basic but it's a step in the right direction that authors self published or not must do some marketing or they will not do as well as they should. And this goes without saying that marketing should not be "hard" but a soft approach. This book has helped me with marketing my own ebook but again, this is a marathon and not a sprint.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Too Much Hype July 21, 2011

By Carla Fister

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I haven't quite finished the book yet but my biggest beef with it is, that it's a commercial for his company. In itself that's not a bad thing and the book is free. But I'm new to all of this so I want information and after reading over and over in the book that Smashwords is the ONLY way to do.... other research showed that if I really want to have my book show all the photos and graphics that will be included in the hard copy version I'm better off to use LuLu.

I just like getting ALL the info before putting forth any effort and money. Smashwords may work well for distribution of a book with all text that can look the same whether it's in a Word doc or a pdf but I'm a photographer and graphic designer and being told I have to put my book in a Word doc for submission is where I stopped reading.

He offers other good online marketing ideas but tends to turn most of it back to his company. I'm glad it was a free book because I would've felt ripped off if I had to buy a commercial

Update to last review...
I added 2 more stars because I did end up using Smashwords for my ebook distribution. It came down to how many formats their system supported and it's pretty much all of them. Once I read the whole guide for formatting a Word doc for their smasher I was able to include all the photos I wanted and was satisfied with the quality of how they looked.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars You must read this book. May 12, 2011

By Stephen A. Ives

Format:Kindle Edition

I have just had my book "From The Inside Out" published to the Premium list on Smashwords and i could never have done it without the Style Guide (also free on Smashwords). This marketing guide is simple and easy to follow and the logical next step for anyone who wants to market their book worldwide; yup worldwide and its free! Writing a book simply that can be understood by all is not as easy as it sounds. Mark you have once again done a great job for all aspiring authors. Keep up the good work!!