Book Marketing: The Benefits of Giving Your Book Away

You've worked hard to write your book and get it published . So it may seem counter-intuitive as a book marketing strategy to simply give away your work but in the long-term you could reap huge dividends.

Nowadays, it is customary for authors to give away a couple of free chapters from their book to whet the appetite of potential readers. Think of it as a "try before you buy" strategy.

And it is very effective because people love to receive freebies but hate the feeling of not knowing the whole story. Of course, if you are only given access to a couple of chapters of a book and those chapters are very engaging then it's only natural that you'll want to read the rest of the book.

However, you can take the concept of giving away a chapter or two of your book a stage further. You can let individuals choose which chapter of your book they would like to receive. This approach provides invaluable market research because you get to see which topic in your book draws the greatest traction. An example of a book where this strategy was used is "The Audacity of Deceit", a book about the proposed policies of Barack Obama written by David O'Leary.

Knowing what chapters readers are initially most interested in can help to shape other aspects of your book marketing campaign. For instance, if you are using articles as part of your book marketing strategy you can focus your articles on the most popular topics of your book. Similarly, if you are hosting teleseminars or providing a sample audio extract from your book you can choose the most popular section of your book to base your audio on.

Many authors also choose to give away a digital version of their entire book. Some authors fear this may detract from sales but in reality, many readers will still purchase a physical copy of your book even if they have a digital version. In addition, if they like your book enough they will not only spread the word about your book they may also buy a copy of the book for a family member, friend or colleague. Better still, if they are a business owner or manager they might buy several copies of the book for their staff.

Hence, when you give away copies of your book think strategically. Include people on your list who have a wide sphere of influence.

Authors who sell their digital ebooks often worry that it will be passed along. There are obvious disadvantages to this. For instance, if this happens it means that you will lose out on capturing that person's name for your own database. However, people don't share books they dislike so the fact that someone is passing your book along can be seen as an advantage as well. And you want as many people as possible to read your book.

There are ways to prevent indiscriminate sharing of your digital content such as password protecting the document, limiting the number of times it can be printed and restricting the number of computers that it can be accessed from, etc. However, this can defeat your objective to promote your book and harness as many sales as possible for your book.

The thing is that people will share digital ebooks just as they share physical books. The key then is to ensure that your overall volume of sales is high enough for you to absorb these losses. Remember to include information about your products and services, such as coaching and consulting, in your book. Even someone who did not originally buy your book may still end up purchasing other of your products or services. Or, at the very least you may receive an unsolicited review of your book.

So, as part of your book marketing strategy, allow potential buyers to have access to free content. Also, make it easy for potential customers or clients to purchase from you at whatever level they choose. For example, someone might not buy your book but they may buy your $2,000 mentoring program - just as a result of reading your free ebook.

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