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.
Lisa Birnesser says
March 11, 2012 at 6:05 pmEbooks on Kindle are a hot ticket item and a great ways to connect with your readers. Thanks for this post, Sue!
Tiffany deSilva says
March 11, 2012 at 9:13 amGreat 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.
Sue Painter says
March 10, 2012 at 2:07 pmHi 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
Linda Pucci says
March 8, 2012 at 7:50 pmLike 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!
Sue Painter says
March 8, 2012 at 9:58 pmLinda,
Well there you go! New way to do business!
Sue
Jeff Brunson says
March 8, 2012 at 8:09 amThanks Sue. I already have some ebooks with more on the horizon with my fellow writer Ric Gonzalez. Thanks for the encouragement.
Sue Painter says
March 8, 2012 at 10:50 amHi Jeff,
I’m glad to hear about your future Kindle books!
Sue