March 6-12 is “Read an E-book Week” in North America. I love e-books, and if you're a small business owner I bet you do, too. They're portable, searchable, and available on just about any topic you can imagine. If you spend some time traveling to workshops and conferences like I do, you know that the ease of carrying an e-reader beats loading a briefcase up with 3 or 4 books for reading on the road.
Many small business owners are e-book authors, as well. I write e-books because I can offer high-value content to my customers at an extremely reasonable price. For those SBO's who are just starting out, e-books can provide very useful training in small business topics for less than the cost of dinner out. In fact, some e-books about small business topics are available on Kindle for less than a buck. Don't think e-books sell? Think again – e-book sales in the past year increased by 100%!
Those 99 cent Kindle e-books are great business builders for small business owners and self-employed professionals. If you can write, you can share your expertise to a much wider market than you're ever likely to get on your own website. You can achieve three things:
1. Build your visibility
2. Generate leads for your business
3. Build your credibility
Besides getting great information that helps with your business, e-books are great for “escape” reading, too. If you are a budding author who wants to write the next best-selling mystery you can follow those writers who have self-published on Kindle, gained a huge following, and then sold follow-on books to major publishing houses. On the other hand, you can continue to feed new books to your followers through e-books and forego publishing houses altogether – many well-known published authors have recently done so.
The point is, publishing on Kindle is kind of like the Wild West – frontiers are being explored and real estate is being staked. If you can share your expertise in writing, you can serve a much larger market than you've been serving and benefit both your business and the world at large. No wonder small business owners like e-books – as both consumers and producers e-books give a great bang for your buck. You can check out my e-books by going to the Products tab on my website.
Ebooks on Kindle are a hot ticket item and a great ways to connect with your readers. Thanks for this post, Sue!
Great advice, Sue! Even if your ebook is free on Kindle you can build a lot of buzz, build your list, and ultimately get more customers. And don’t forget about ebooks for iBook, as well.
Hi Sally,
There are quite a number of free or very low-cost resources available that provide info on how to publish on Kindle. The first place to start is with Amazon – go grab Amazon’s free guide to publishing on Kindle at this link: http://www.amazon.com/Publish-Amazon-Kindle-Publishing-ebook/dp/B004LX069M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331406390&sr=8-1
Sue
Like Kathy, I’ve written ebooks (as well as print books) but hadn’t thought about publishing them onto the e-readers for a new market. I’ve already planned to do e-books for the fiction I’m writing, but hadn’t thought of re-publishing my self-help books as an ebook. Well, duh–guess I’ve got some researching to do when I get back!
Linda,
Well there you go! New way to do business!
Sue
Thanks Sue. I already have some ebooks with more on the horizon with my fellow writer Ric Gonzalez. Thanks for the encouragement.
Hi Jeff,
I’m glad to hear about your future Kindle books!
Sue