Last Friday we talked about the value of creating an E-book and giving it away for Free. Here at Sirius we stand by the value of that so much that we gave away our services free to help a project created by Lori Hoek and Betsy Wuebker called The Narcissist: A User’s Guide. It will be released on Feb 2. We are hoping that everyone will be excited about this and go download this wonderful book, read it, pass it around to all of their friends and maybe even change a few lives out there. (Please? Could you do that? It would be really nice of you.) But…is hoping enough? Can we just cross our fingers, pat each other on the back and wish each other good luck?

Throwing a Party and Nobody Comes.

We’ve all had that dreaded fear. You plan and plan for a party, you buy the groceries, you send out the invitations and you are terrified that nobody is going to show up. You can just tell…You’ll be stuck in an empty house filled with fading balloons and too much food. Sound familiar?

How can you be sure your E-book release party isn’t going to meet with the same fate?

Hire a Party Planner

Otherwise known as getting a sound, reliable marketing plan and advice. You’ve spent far too much time, energy and money to create a high quality product to send it out on a whisper and a prayer. You need a step-by-step easy plan that can systematically take you from book completion to the hands of your readers.

Marketing the Free Book

Everybody is familiar with marketing plans for e-books that sell. We have all seen huge release campaigns that go on for up to a month or longer, building up suspense until it feels like the second coming. We’ve gotten letters in our e-mail box with pre-release notices that tell us we are special and we can buy the product ahead of time and get it for a discount. We’ve seen urgency tactics- Buy now or the price will go up! Time sensitive tactics-Hurry or this product is going away until next year! Affiliate programs that promise to give us a piece of the financial pie. And they all work. Marketers can point to studies and graphs that pinpoint a rise in sales when these marketing strategies are used.

But you aren’t selling anything. It isn’t time sensitive. There is no financial pie to share with affiliates. And you can’t really discount something cheaper then free.

So what does that leave?

Enthusiasm Sells

You wrote your book for a reason. You wrote it for a particular audience and you had a particular message you wanted to share and get out to the world. Do you remember how excited you were when you first thought of the idea? Share that enthusiasm.  Tell your story. Guest post. Write about it, build the excitement. Fan the flames, give it to a few fans, let them spread the fire…plan the party and invite a few more guests…tell the story some more, ask help to share your story and spread the tale. Plan a release date and make sure all the party guests you wrote it for know about the party. Never underestimate the power of referrals, enthusiasm and carefully targeting the right audience.

Need more help strategically getting the word out about your E-book party?

Let us know. We love planning parties.

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• The Value of a FREE! E-Book
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• (Self) Publish or (Self) Perish?
• Sirius Sunday: A Solid Kick in the Pants
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