Re:Ask HN: Advice on promoting my next free ebook
by chrislawrence on Thursday April 25, 2013 @06:02AM
(#5606424)
I don't have experience in ebooks but I did just release a free album and I think there may be some crossover. Here's some stuff that worked for me:
1. Make sure it as easy as possible to access your work. Even though it is free, you are still asking a lot from your readers by asking them to pick your content over all the other content out there. For example I made a built-in player for the website and a one-click download link.
2. Send a brief email to people you respect within the community. This could be bloggers, other writers, forum posters. For the last year I collected a list of websites that I liked and when the album was done I had a nice list of people to contact.
3. Accept donations! I was surprised by how many people wanted to give me money. There's nothing wrong with this if you don't be a jerk about it.
I guess this is mostly pretty obvious, and there's no substitute for having good content!
1. Make sure it as easy as possible to access your work. Even though it is free, you are still asking a lot from your readers by asking them to pick your content over all the other content out there. For example I made a built-in player for the website and a one-click download link.
2. Send a brief email to people you respect within the community. This could be bloggers, other writers, forum posters. For the last year I collected a list of websites that I liked and when the album was done I had a nice list of people to contact.
3. Accept donations! I was surprised by how many people wanted to give me money. There's nothing wrong with this if you don't be a jerk about it.
I guess this is mostly pretty obvious, and there's no substitute for having good content!