Excellence in E-Books with our Guest Blogger: Valerie Chambers

Meet indie author Valerie Chambers 

today at the Book Boost!

How to Launch Your E-book Successfully

E-books, short for electronic books, are becoming increasingly popular learning tools nowadays with hundreds of thousands currently available for download. Apart from being a gem for people who want to learn to cook or exercise, e-books are also an ideal product for profit. If an e-book is valuable enough, it can go from being a complimentary download to a product consumers are willing to pay top dollar for. The success of your e-books depend largely on its launch. If it fails to take off perfectly, it will likely be ignored like the rest of the e-books that have flopped over time.

What to Write?

Ask your targeted readers what kind of e-book they want prior writing one. Although you have some ideas of your own, you have to remember that your readers don't have the same background and ideas. The only way to check what kind of e-book your readers would want to read is by directly asking them. Of course this doesn't necessarily mean you have to go door to door. Simply post your question on a blog site, email your newsletter subscribers, or use social networking sites to reach them. Better yet, utilize all three approaches for more extensive and accurate results.

Proofread

Regardless of how great your ideas and presentation are, it is no excuse for leaving out errors like misspelled words or shabby grammar on your e-book. Always proofread your work before even considering launching it. Have a friend or relative who is well versed in reading and writing proofread your e-book and then proofread it yourself one last time. If you fail to proofread your work and the errors do reach your readers, this will emulate an unprofessional stature on your part. Invest a little extra of your time and effort and it'll pay out in great dividends.

Why Write?

Why are you writing an e-book? Is it because you've heard it can be very profitable? Perhaps you wish to achieve fame by making a ton of e-books? Identifying your core purpose in pursuing e-book writing is important as it gives you inspiration and motivation to do the best you can. Before writing an e-book and launching it, get seriously clear and straight to the point regarding your purpose, so that your work meets the end objectives and you don't allot a huge portion of your lifetime chasing the wrong goal.

Add a Bonus

In this challenging economic climate, consumers always look for an incentive to purchase a product or service. When launching your e-book, you should look for a way to sweeten the deal for consumers who buy your product to give them more value than what they are paying for. This will serve as somewhat your appreciation offering.

In the end, what really counts in a successful e-book launch is content. Make sure your content has value otherwise no amount of bonus or strong marketing campaign can save your work from failure. Once you secure this meaningful content, you can then work on your advertising tactics.


A Note from the Book Boost:  Great advice, Valerie.  Thanks for sharing your expertise with us today at the Book Boost.  After years with traditional publishing, I'm considering the self publishing route myself.  

Who's Valerie?

Valerie Chambers writes about her career as a self-publishing author and English professor. Her most recent work is titled the "Best College Majors For The Future".