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eBook Obscurity is a Marketing Problem If you are a writer who values being read over making money, it is possible to break out of obscurity by giving your work away. Internet users are used to free content. They have come to expect it. When the price point rises above $2.99 Ebooks sales fall. Now $2.99 is not free, but ten hours reading quality entertainment costs less than a cup of coffee. Only when the buyer knows it is a quality book, for the price of a coffee, does it seem free. Internet users become very flighty after being sold. Some experts say that it takes seven contacts from different sources to calm the apprehension of being ripped off again. So eBook marketing has to find ways to build trust with a potential buyer. Blogs by authors are a relationship building tool. More and more webinars are being used to allow the buyers to work out if what they are about to buy is the real deal or just another scam. My eBook platform does both: free content and "try before you by" audio narration. Some say ads imbedded inside books is the future. Imagine all books in the public domain free. That is not a fanciful paradigm shift. Isn't that what FREE TO AIR TV does now? The name of the game will be to sell your quality as a writer to advertisers. The stuff of nightmares for the big six. The problem is publishing is changing because technology is changing. I don't like reading off a computer but I experience no eye strain (I am blind in one eye) when reading an Iphone. Natural ink and long battery life have changed the reading landscape and there's no going back. I know one author who gives all his work away free. He does quite well charging for interviews and he does charge for any soft covers which are ordered. This writer prefers a large fan base and being read rather than obscurity. He uses the analogy of his work being lost in the forest of Ebooks. Creating a landing page and trying to sell books does not work. And the big eBook platforms do not promote new unknown authors. Both methods leave some wonderful books lost in obscurity. Even giving them away requires marketing at the beginning. To date there is no surefire method for successfully marketing Ebooks. Some have described the pricing as a race to the bottom. New authors who have spent years preparing their book find it hard to face the going price point is $2.99. Currently there is no correlation between the quality, length or price of an Ebook. So if the current situation means you are not going to get much money you better break out of obscurity and make quantity work for you. A fellow writer took six years to write her book, then spent her own money to print 500 copies. She has sold 130 copies and she is totally discouraged in obscurity. My book "Dream Bouncing" is marketed by a sample MP3 narration of the first 70 pages. It is a compromise between being free and spending $3.99 for 79,000 words. This strategy overcomes the fear that the buyer may be buying rubbish. Audio narration is easy to download and is entertaining. It has the benefit of being listened to anywhere any time even while performing some other activity. When the buyer is inductively engaged enough with the narrative they now TRUST, so buy an eight hour read for the price of a cup of coffee The instant generation finds watching easier than reading. YouTube is by far the most used medium on the internet. I could foresee authors going one step beyond an audio sampler to build credibility through film to capture the imagination of the buyer, but only by reading the book can the end of the story be revealed. Some authors will be throwing their hands in the air saying, "I'm an author not a film-maker." Partnerships will not be optional if you don't want to stay in eBook obscurity. My platform uses a co-writer to help with my poor spelling (I'm Dyslexic). I use a web designer to present a site that gives as well as sells. I use a gifted narrator and have plans to add an animator to the growing list of partners. Very few are so multi-skilled that they can effectively market Ebooks on their own. This Author is a huge fan of Author Kristi Ambrose
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