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7 Comments

You wrote an e-book. Now what?

Let's say you wrote an e-book.

But you didn't build any followers around it, or anything, you just wrote it.

Where the e-book is either about (just for perspective):

  • an interesting life story.
    or:
  • just-for-entertainment for people interested in business, but nothing serious.

What will you do next?

  1. 3

    I wrote, then self published it. First as an ebook, then edited it further and self published a hard copy because the digital version started selling.

    People do browse and purchase books, they will promote it for you, word of month works.

    Another trick is to offer it for free for a while, as more peole buy books they don't have to pay for, but will spread the word.

    Not spending energy or money promoting it. I much prefer writing.

    This is assuming you wrote something of quality of course.

  2. 2

    I'd share it. Create a landing page, make it downloadble. You could capture emails in exchange for the book if there's an opportunity to market towards the specific audience in the future (if you want to)

    1. 1

      Cool ideas, I guess you're right, once its written it's passive income-able, so all the work then is just to mention it here and there.

      BTW - I really like what you did with Hello Ruby, hadn't I used php/laravel already, I would probably be convinced to do your course :D

  3. 2

    @nscode I would bask (momentarily) in the satisfaction of a job well done. Anyone who has ever written can tell you what long and thankless hours it can be. So, a little breather and some relaxation/battery recharge is definitely in order. After that, I'd share it with those that I thought might get something out of it, in hopes that they might share it with those they thought might get something out of it. I'd tap into the inspiration drawn from their feedback to begin writing my next e-book. 🙃

    1. 1

      I like your answer, which gave me some food-for-thought.

      I saw this quote on google now - "The average person knows about 600 people".
      But I'm sure most are not close enough to care.

      I probably will have to work hard on marketing it outside this 600 people circle.

      As I see it, I have two options to succeed with this book:
      Either magically people will be intrigued by what the ebook offers, because it's super unusual. Which in turn will draw more people in.

      Or,
      I find a publisher that will see the uniqueness (if it apply ;p) of what I wrote and decides to back it up..

      Just my thoughts on how I would go about this..

      What would intrigue people to just stop when they see a book in their feed?

      1. 2

        @nscode Well, I can only speak from personal experience, but I do read a lot of books. 50% of the time, I pick up a book because I've fallen down the rabbit hole on the subject matter and research it myself; 30% of the time, someone has recommended/referred it to me; 20% of the time, I stumble across it or a title piques my interest.

        Reviews, word-of-mouth referral and subject interest are probably the main reasons why people pick up the books they do.

        I hope this helps!

  4. 1

    I would offer the beginning as free text online similarly as what Levels did with his MAKE book. If the text is interesting, people would want to continue...

    Btw you probably should build some following or awareness. You can read my recent article for inspiration.

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