Entrepreneurial Writers, I Bet You Didn't Think Of This

By Chris Willitts

Marketing your writing online can come in many flavors. But here is a radical idea for you to consider that most people have never heard of. Divide your "one" book of facts, short stories or novel into separate eBooks (electronic books) — packaging and selling them as a new series/chapter every month. This is called serializing.

The goal here is to prime your fan base and draw them in with appetizers of your writing and eventually sell them the entirety of this material in a physical book — while making a little cash in the process. Studies show that nearly 20% of those who buy eBooks later buy paperbacks. You can think of eBooks as low-cost previews.

The cutting-edge insanity about eBooks is the convenience of their instant electronic delivery and the incredible ZERO cost to produce them. You can produce an unlimited amount of eBooks and it will cost absolutely nothing, apart from the initial cost of having them designed. In addition, there is no cost to deliver eBooks. And because you don't have to worry about the hassles of supplies or inventory, this method of publishing is incredibly convenient. The best distribution format for eBooks is Adobe® Acrobat® Portable Document Format, or PDF, in 8-1/2"x11" page format; so, it can be easily printed out if desired.

Let's look at applying this strategy, realistically, to the real world: Imagine that you have an ezine (electronic newsletter) of 2,000 subscribers. On a monthly basis you deliver, via email, a new set of informative facts (essays) or short stories, fiction series, or group of poems that you package and sell as a PDF eBook. You announce this to all 2,000 of your ezine subscribers, including a free sample, and sell the set for $5 as an instant download. Suppose only 2% of your subscribers purchase your new eBook each month. 40 readers x $5 = $200 per month.

Imagine if you teamed up with owners of various ezines within your marketplace to promote and sell your appetizers (eBooks). Let's say you find someone with an ezine that has 10,000 subscribers and work out a deal to split the profits 50/50. Using the same figures mentioned above, that would put an additional $500 in your pocket. In fact, you aren't required to own your own ezine to test this concept out — you can simply team up with one or more owners of various ezines.

Two hundred to Five hundred dollars extra per month won't make you rich, but for many of us it adds up to at least a car payment. Not to mention that this figure should grow because ideally ezines are continuously adding new subscribers. Another way to generate more income is by increasing the conversion rate from 2% to 5%.

The brilliance in this approach is that you can cultivate a loyal following — people who will buy your physical books when you publish them because they already have a taste of your work, and if its good, will want some more. Because this "out-of-the-box" concept will cost you next to nothing to implement, it is about as low-risk (financially) as it gets. This will also give you an opportunity to receive feedback from your fan base about your writing that will allow you to fine-tune the quality of your work.

So what am I trying to say here?

Go sell appetizers to entice your audience to move on to the main course. •

© Copyright 2005 Chris Willitts. All rights reserved.

Updated 1/6/14