The Book Marketing Guidebook

Introduction – Doing Your Best Is Not Enough; You Must Do What Is Required!

This isn’t a book for the masses; it is dedicated to self-published indie authors and is designed as a complete desktop marketing compendium resource for all authors engaged in the marketing and promotion of their book or books.

Hi, I’m Treat Preston.  I am one of a dozen staff writers for ePubWealth.com, LLC: http://www.epubwealth.com . I am also one of over a thousand contract authors that ePubWealth.com, LLC provides full time publishing services for all over the world.  ePubWealth.com, LLC has over forty thousand books in its inventory and this entire book will show you how the company sells literally tens of thousands of books each month for its contract authors.

As I said previously, I wrote this book basically for self-published indie authors that are doing the marketing and promotional tasks for their own books and many of them totally bewildered by the tasks necessary to push their books to bestsellers.  It isn’t as difficult as it may seem and this book will offer you many different techniques that are tried and proven. 

My wife, Cynthia is also a contract author with ePubWealth and we’ve been with the company for over fifteen years now.  I have to brag a bit; my wife and I live a very nice life.  We live in Auburn, California, set in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains just east of Sacramento.  This is the perfect backdrop for writing and every morning you will find Cynthia and me writing on our laptops.  I write in multiple genres but Cynthia specializes in children’s books.  We write, ePubWealth does the rest so yes, we have a very nice life.  Now you can too by following the bouncing ball and using the exact same programs the company uses.

There are basically two reasons why authors write books:

To express themselves on topics they have a passion for irregardless of the book’s market potential and/or profitability.  I do this; my wife doesn’t, and it seems I have many topics of passion to express.  If you are like this then no harm nor foul.  This is a good thing…

However; as my wife points out in a very strong manner, We have to make money to keep the lights on, Treat, and she is never wrong especially on this one.  So In Chapter 2, I will teach you how to research profitable book topics called Kindle Indirect Optimization Protocol so you can do both #1 and #2 like I do if this is your reason(s) to write.

In each chapter of this book, I will be giving you a good many resources that I personally use and/or the company uses in its promotional activities.  Many of the programs offered are proprietary and developed by the company exclusively for its authors.  Most are free but some programs do charge but they are all inexpensive unless you have a large inventory of books like my wife and me then it can get pricey but our sales far outpace our expenses so this is a good thing too (lol).. 

Read each program carefully and be sure it includes the genre you write in because some do exclude genres such as erotica and zombie adventures, etc or they specialize in one type of genre such as romance, etc...

I will be referring a good many books to you also.  You can find these books by going online to the ePubWealth.com Library Catalog:

EPW Library Catalog Online

http://www.epubwealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Leland-benton-private-turbo.pdf

You may also download this catalog too:

EPW Library Catalog Download

http://www.filefactory.com/f/562ef3ea1a054f0a

This book is part of the company’s ePublishing series of books:

A Tail of Two Cheetahs

Author Blueprint

BookJumping

Copyright Law Guidebook

Distraction Video Marketing

How To Create, Market & Sell Audiobooks

How To Create, Market & Sell Videobooks

How to Get FREE Publicity and Interviews

How to Promote Your Book Online & Offline Vol 1

How To Promote Your Book Online & Offline Vol 2

How To Promote Your Book Online & Offline Vol 3

How to Write a Kindle Book in Hours

How to Write Compelling Content

International Standard Book Numbers

Promoting Your Video Book Trailers

Publish with a Purpose

Star Power - Using Celebrities for Interviews & Promotions

The Overwhelmed Author

The ePubWealth Program

The ePubWealth Program ADVANCED

The Publishing Agreement

Wordsmiths

As I go along I will give you supporting resources so that you always have complete information to evaluate. Now, one of the most often asked questions is, Can I do all of these programs?  The short answer is yes but it’s going to take you a good long time to them so I am going to give you my best kept secret resource.  Are you ready?  Here it is:

Sanchita Dutta

solution.bn@gmail.com

www.bnsolution.in

Sanchita is our company’s main contract graphic designer BUT she also has been trained by the company to do so much more.  For example, she is an expert Wordpress developer and website designer, HTML programmer, animation designer (my wife uses her to animate her children’s books), she can publish your books on any of the platforms described in Chapter 6, she can also do many of the promotional programs described in this book, and so much more.  Contact her and tell her that ePubWealth referred you and she will quote you our company pricing.  I personally use her for book covers, websites, sales pages, advertisement banners, HTML emails…I simply cannot list everything she does for me and my wife.  You are going to love her and her prices cannot be beat!!!  And she is fast too!  She turns things around quickly and gets it back to you.

Here are some resources you need to download but get ready to be WOWED; you simply will not believe what I have placed in these download portals:

Author Resources 1:

http://www.filefactory.com/f/25382b8a0b65bd14

Author Resources 2:

http://www.filefactory.com/f/5afef6210b2c1f94

In Author Resources 2, I have place the EPW Marketing and Promotions Checklist so you can place it on your desktop for easy reference.  I use this resource for every one of my promotions by book and you should too.  It keeps me highly organized and while I am on the subject of organization, my colleague, Leland Benton just published a course on Udemy called The Overwhelmed Author and it deals with organization for authors.  It is a course to die for and even my wife, who seemingly is never impressed with anything, has been raving about the course.  Go here to check it out:

Udemy - The Overwhelmed Author Course

https://www.udemy.com/the-overwhelmed-author-time-management-for-all-authors

Here is a deal that you have to be deaf and dumb in both eyeballs to pass up.  The company offers what is called the EPW Webinar Archive membership with access to all of its webinars and PowerPoint Presentation Workshops for a low one-time fee of $29.97.  There are 18-classes and PowerPoint Presentation Workshops all dealing in publishing and book marketing many of which are described in this book.  Go here to read all about it:

http://www.epubwealth.com/webinar-archive/

Now, Chapters 1-31 described both exclusive programs developed by ePubWealth and existing programs you may be familiar with but you will quickly realize that ePubWealth gives it a different twist to improve them.  These programs are all inexpensive if not free and authors can easily engage them to improve their book sales so study each chapter carefully...

I want to point out in particular the following Chapters since these are easy to do and the results are phenomenal:

Chapter 3 - Good Ol’ Fashion EMAIL MARKETING

Chapter 8 - Automated Postcards – This is a Wicked Bad Program!!!

Chapter 10 - Fast TV Exposure: I Was Beyond Stunned by the Results!!!

Chapter 18 – Book Bump

I was so impressed with the results of the above four chapters that I actually conduct these as weekly campaigns rotating all of my books in and through them.  My wife calls me the Email King of Northern California and I think she is right.  Email really sells a good many books for me and you can set your campaigns and just let them run…what I call Set & Forget!  A few things to bear in mind with email and these are important:

It doesn’t happen overnight; a general rule of thumb is the customer needs to see seven emails from you before they act.

Even if the customer doesn’t buy, the email serves to BRAND you as an author in their minds.  I sent an email to one of my lists to sell one of my new books called Contradictions and it did okay – the list was to 835,000 customers and I sold 233 books but then I sent another email for one of my best selling books, Triggers That Cause Buyers to Open Their Wallets to the same list two weeks later and sold 687 books.  Note that the genres of each book were different but I am convinced they remember my first email and jumped at my second offer.

All of my email offers give the option of buying the Kindle version, the PDF eBook version (this sells the most), the audiobook version (this sells the second most), and the paperback version.  Give the customer options!

In Chapter 32, this is where an author can really push their books quickly to bestseller and this is where the big money is to be made.  However; Chapter 32 touches on what is available but it cannot be taught in an ebook format.  An author must learn the stuff hands-on and then mimic what they have learned with other books in their inventory.  Furthermore, the Over-the-Top Promos program is a continuing work-in-progress since I continue to work with authors as well as send them updates, new contacts and new programs as I test them and make them available so it never really ends and I am available to work with my authors and get them through the rough spots.

I know this book is long – please forgive me in advance for being overly verbose - but read it over and over again and commit the programs to memory until they become second nature.  Constantly refer back and truly learn this stuff.  Like the Introduction title states, "Doing your best is not good enough; you must do what is required.

Okay, let’s get to the good stuff.  If you get stuck and need some help just write to me: treatpreston@epubwealth.com .  I will be happy to assist you anyway I can.

Chapter 1 - Optimization Techniques

Optimization, also known as SEO, is the important first step to selling books, and the steps described in this chapter are necessary to get your books ranked in the search engines as well as on each publishing platform you choose to sell your books. These are NOT tricks; these are proven techniques that work!

Step 1: Research Titles & Keywords – DO NOT ONLY USE Google AdWords Keyword Tool and the Global Monthly Searches of low competition long-tailed keyword terms!  Don’t do this, please!  Use both Google and the Kindle Search Tool but use the Kindle Search Tool the most. Kindle readers are buyers; Google users are surfers first; Kindle readers go first to the Kindle Search Tool BEFORE they use the search engines! It’s like a surgeon saying, OOPS! when you are on the operating table. Not Good!  This is how you do it…

I use this FREE Keyword Pad, too, (Good Keywords) developed by Softnik:

http://www.softnik.com/products/

Here is an excellent tutorial on Keyword Pad:

http://www.tiawood.com/articles/tools/509-tools-using-keyword-pad-to-find-available-domains.html

Okay, let’s demonstrate using an ePubWealth book called Body Language:

Go to the Amazon Kindle Store:

In the search box enter the term - body language. You will see this:

Notice the drop down menu. These are the keywords that Kindle readers are using to find books on Body Language. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing allows 7-keywords so you can select keywords from the drop down menu (place in a text file)! Next, look for the bestselling book in your category – in this case Body Language. In the above example, the book called What every BODY is saying is the top selling book on Body Language. 

Kindle Store is THE MAIN search engine you use to optimize all of your books, BUT they are not the only one. You may use these, too:

eReaderIQ: http://www.ereaderiq.com/ - This is a search engine specifically for Amazon.com. It allows you to really narrow your searches on Amazon...often in ways the normal Amazon search engine does not. eReaderIQ allows you to search the Kindle Store by price, average customer review, and publication date. It also allows you to eliminate public domain titles from a search or to search only public domain titles. Not to mention it gives you the ability to search for ebooks with those criteria...and then dig down deeper by narrowing the search by category. So if you want to find every ebook priced between $1 and $10 in the category of Computers and Internet – Graphic Design....you can easily accomplish that with eReaderIQ.

Jungle Search: http://www.jungle-search.com/US/ - Jungle Search is best used for searching physical/print books on Amazon. Why search for print