eBook Marketing to Adapt More to Online Environments

Not long ago at PodCamp Philly 2010, one of the sessions was about using social media marketing for authors (more on this topic at a future date).  During that session, I had asked the instructor Don Lafferty @donlafferty about ebook publishing. The general gist, from what I could gather, is that with self publishing via ebooks, the author does not usually benefit from the credibility or the reach that comes with a book deal.

Many well-known authors, take Seth Godin for example, are choosing ebooks and self-publishing over traditional book deals. And many of my peers are in the process of authoring some kind of ebook as well. This would be in line with recent ebook industry stats indicating the worldwide ebooks market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42% from 2009 to 2012. Major ebook segments include the education market, at $1.8 billion, the consumer market at $1.5 billion, and the professional market at $1.3 billion (MarketingVox).

And new publishing models where books are released solely online  is also gaining traction. I even came across an author who published his entire book, chapter by chapter, on a Facebook page; this allowed him to in turn allow his readers to influence his chapters as they were written.

Such trends in ebook and online book publishing are changing how ebooks are being marketed. Literary agent Jeff Kleinman, of Folio Literary Management sums it up accurately: “How to market an ebook, how to get the book noticed, how to make an ebook rise to the front page of Amazon, how to connect with readers, how to sign digital copies — these are the kinds of questions that are going to need answers in the expanding digital market.”

In light of my own recent ebook authoring efforts, I find this topic to be high interest. What do you think about the expanding ebook industry and its infiltration into the online publishing space? What marketing ideas have you put into place that have worked … or not?