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The information that follows on this page is from the 2013 edition of the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide, which will remain here for historical purposes only.
In the previous post, I told you how you’re unlikely to sell a lot of ebooks in the near term. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s review how Smashwords helps market your book today, without you lifting a finger:
1. Exposure at Smashwords.com, our retail operation - Simply by publishing your book on Smashwords, your book is discoverable by thousands of customers who pass through our virtual doors each day. Once a visitor starts browsing, we make it easy for them to serendipitously discover books and authors of possible interest with features such as category searches, bestseller lists, highest rated lists, “People who recently purchased this book also purchased these books,” and “People who recently viewed this author also viewed these authors.”
2. Distribution to Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony and others - Smashwords is the world’s largest distributor of self-published ebooks. Ebook distribution is important, because if your book isn’t widely available in all major retailers, then it’s not discoverable. Once your book is accepted into the Smashwords Premium Catalog, Smashwords distributes it to the Apple iBookstore (50 countries), Barnes & Noble (US and U.K., with more countries on the way), Kobo (multiple countries), Sony, the Diesel eBook Store and Baker and Taylor (the Blio.com store and the Axis360 service for public libraries). More retail agreements are in the works (stay tuned!). Most Smashwords authors and publishers derive 80% or more of their sales through the Smashwords distribution network, as opposed to the Smashwords.com store. It’s free and easy to earn inclusion in the Premium Catalog. Simply format your book to the requirements of the Smashwords Style Guide. Learn more at http://smashwords.com/distribution
3. Multiple ebook formats – When you upload a book to Smashwords, we convert it into nine different ebook formats. This makes your book accessible and readable to users of any e-reading device. Customers can purchase the book at Smashwords once, and enjoy it on any of their personal devices in any format. Some of the many devices include the iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Nook, Kobo Reader, Sony Reader, personal computers, smart phones, and future devices not even invented yet.
4. Author profile page - When you publish with Smashwords, we automatically create a personal web page for you with a unique web address. You can post your bio and picture, provide a listing of your published books on Smashwords, add links to outside web sites, integrate your external blog, or provide links to where readers can purchase print versions of your book. Your profile page also lists reviews you have written of other Smashwords books (more on this later).
5. Book pages - For each book you publish with Smashwords, we create a web page dedicated to that book. You can upload a book cover, upload YouTube book trailers, and add a synopsis and descriptive tags to help readers find your book. Your book page is where prospective readers can access samples of your book in formats readable on any ebook reading device. Customers can post reviews of your book on your book page.
6. Sampling - Smashwords offers the most powerful and flexible sampling system you’ll find anywhere. Sampling allows readers to try your book before they buy. As the author, you determine the sampling percentage, from word one forward. If, for example, you select 15% sampling, the first 15% of your book, starting at the beginning, is available for free download so prospective readers can try before they buy. At the end of the sample, we prompt them to purchase the full book.
7. Search Engine Visibility - Your profile page, book pages and online book samples are designed so search engines can easily discover and index them. Simply by publishing your book on Smashwords, you’ll have dozens, sometimes hundreds of inbound links to your pages from the leading search engines, making it easier for prospective readers to discover you.
8. Coupons! - Smashwords offers a custom coupon generator that makes it easy for you to create coupon codes you can distribute to your fans on your email lists, web site, blog, or social networks. To generate a coupon, click to your Dashboard at http://www.smashwords.com/dashboard. Coupons are tremendously popular with our authors. Read on below for some ideas on how you can market with coupons.
9. Book Reviews - Book reviews help sell books, so we make it easy for your customers to review your books. Whenever someone buys your book, we send them an automated reminder to review your book if they enjoyed it. We also work with third party reviewers to help them review your books.
10. Embeddable YouTube Videos - As an author, you can embed YouTube videos in both your profile page and your book pages. This is great for book trailers, or just you in front of the camera talking about your book. Video offers you a chance to engage the senses of the prospective reader and entice them to sample and purchase your book.
11. Book tagging - We realize even our extensive hardwired book categories can’t accurately describe all books, so we allow you as the author or publisher to add additional tags, or keywords, to help describe your book and make it easier to connect with prospective readers. The book tags you enter help people discover you when they do a book search from the home page search box, or when they click on the tag cloud on the home page. Don’t enter more than ten tags.
12. Tag Cloud - You’ve probably noticed the tag cloud on some pages. The tag cloud offers readers another way to discover books of interest to them. Simply by clicking on a keyword in the cloud, the reader is presented with all the books that match that tag.
13. Other books by this Author or Publisher - When you publish multiple books on Smashwords, you magnify the opportunity for readers to discover you and your works. If a reader is browsing one book page, they’ll see a link that reads, “Also by this author:” or “Also by this publisher:”.
14. Integration with Social Networking and Social Bookmarking Sites - You’ve probably heard the term, “social media,” but may not be sure what it means. Put simply, social media is all about taking what we’ve always known as “word of mouth marketing” and unleashing it on to the Internet, where people can easily share information and interests. On each book page, you’ll notice links to popular social media sites such as Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. Simply by clicking on this link, you or your readers can share your book with friends. Each time someone clicks on one of these links, they’re building a virtual pathway (a hyperlink) that leads back to your book page.
15. The Shopping Cart - We help you sell your book. We offer a simple to use shopping cart for your readers, and we make it easy for them to pay via PayPal or any of the most popular credit cards. And best of all, 85% of the net sales proceeds from your book go to the person who deserves it most: You, the author or publisher (70.5% for sales generated from affiliate marketers). After all, Smashwords was created by an author (me) to help my fellow authors.
16. Smashwords Affiliate Partners Program - The Smashwords Affiliate Marketing Program provides incentive to third party websites, blogs and affiliate marketers to link to and promote your books. Affiliates receive a commission in exchange for all book sales they help generate. As a Smashwords author or publisher, your books are automatically enrolled to benefit from this program.
17. Promotion on Smashwords Satellites – Smashwords Satellites are a collection of over 30 specialized micro-sites operated by Smashwords. Readers can browse Smashwords ebooks by category and topic. The Satellites offer experimental book discovery interfaces that make it easier for customers to discover and sample books of interest. As a Smashwords author, your book is automatically promoted on multiple Satellites. For a complete listing of Satellites, visit http://www.smashwords.com/labs
18. Site-wide Promotions - Several times per year, Smashwords offers special promotions. The most popular promotion is Read an Ebook Week, which usually occurs the second week of March. Another promotion is our annual July Summer/Winter Sale (because it’s summer for our Northern hemisphere customers, and winter for those in the Southern hemisphere). With each of the promotions, you can enroll your books at different discount levels, and we promote your books within a special promotional catalog on the home page and at our mobile retail partners such as Aldiko.
19. Free learning resources – Knowledge is power. We go to great lengths to provide you the free educational learning materials you need to be as successful as possible. This Smashwords Book Marketing Guide is one such free resource. If you’re new to ebook publishing, check out our glossary of ebook publishing terminology in our FAQ at https://www.smashwords.com/about/supportfaq#glossary In March, 2012, I published my most important ebook yet, The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success. It identifies the 28 best-practices of the most commercially successful ebook authors at Smashwords. Once you finish reading this Smashwords Book Marketing Guide, read The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success. Another popular free learning resource is the Smashwords Style Guide. With nearly 250,000 downloads and counting, it’s probably the world’s most popular ebook formatting guide.
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