I Want to Write My E-Book — Not Market It

For many writers, the best part of their job is the writing — creating a fictional world and populating it with interesting characters or explaining useful information in an easy-to-understand way. The writing part, though, may start to feel like only a fraction of what you do — after your e-book is finished (or even while you’re writing it), you also have to think about marketing.

You might start to wish for a traditional book deal, with a publisher who handles all these tasks, but the truth is that you’d still have to do a lot of your own marketing work. Unless you’re quite the big-name author, a publisher doesn’t have much money to invest in a publicist or marketing team for your book.

Marketing doesn’t have to be painful, though. I’m fairly shy when you meet me in person, which is why I focus on online marketing (obviously a good fit for e-books). I actively enjoy writing guest posts to promote my e-books, and I love connecting with readers and writers on Twitter and other social networking sites. Whatever your own personality and preferences, you can find marketing methods that suit you.

If you truly want to stay focused on writing e-books rather than on publicizing them, consider hiring a publicist or paying for advertising. A publicist can do anything from organizing guest posts on your behalf to throwing a Twitter party for your e-book. Paid advertising can range from a slot in a newsletter to a full review on a popular blog.

Keep in mind, too, that if you truly enjoy writing books, you have a single clear marketing advantage: You’re likely to place multiple books on the virtual shelves. Many successful e-book authors say that writing a second (or third or fourth) e-book is one of the best things you can do, because the more books you make available, the more readers and sales you’ll have.